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COUNTRY'S 
VOICE 

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COPKRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 




Content to find where'er her flag shall wave 
Thy glory or thy grave ! 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 



BY 



FRANCES NIMMO GREENE 

/( 
AUTHOR OF "AMERICA FIRST " 



ILLUSTRATED 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

CHICAGO NEW YORK SAN FRANCISCO 






Copyright, 1918, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 



Copyright, 1887, 1915, by THE CENTURY CO. 
Copyright, 1906, by HARPER & BROTHERS 
Copyright, 1911, by T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 



AUG -7 19(8 




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ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

u'' For the use of copyrighted material, the pubhsher 

/n and author extend grateful acknowledgment to the fol- 

^ lowing publishers : Thomas Y. Crowell Company for 

America the Beautiful, by Katherine Lee Bates; the Cen- 
tury Company for the extracts from General Horace 
Porter's account of the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, 
from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War ; Doubleday, 
Page & Company for Captain, My Captain and Pioneers! 
Pioneers! by Walt Whitman; Harper & Brothers for 
the extract from The Americanism of Washington, by 
Henry van Dyke; the Neale Publishing Company for 
the letter from The Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee, Sol- 
dier and Man, by the Reverend J. William Jones, D.D.; 
and to Henry Holcomb Bennett, the author, for The Flag 
Goes By. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

To THE Young American 1 

A Bit of History 4 

Warren's Address to the American Soldiers . 11 

Henry's Appeal to Virginia 12 

English Defense of the Colonies .... 16 

The Minuteman of the Revolution .... 19 

The Concord Hymn 27 

George Washington 28 

Washington 29 

Lafayette — The Friend of America .... 29 

Spirit of the Declaration of Independence — 

Liberty — Justice 33 

The Story of a Flag 42 

How TO Treat the Flag 45 

About Our Constitution — The Foundation of 

Our Laws 48 

The Story of a Song 53 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGB 

America the Beautiful 58 

The Opportunities of Democracy .... 59 

The Monroe Doctrine 60 

Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! 63 

A Nation of Pioneers 66 

The Bivouac of the Dead 70 

Disunion and War 74 

To Save the Union 79 

Little Giffen 81 

Gettysburg Address 83 

About the Battle Hymn 86 

The End of the Brothers' War 90 

O Captain! My Captain! 99 

Repledging the South to the Union . . . 101 

The Blue and the Gray 104 

"Old Ironsides" 106 

Lincoln — The American 109 

Lee — The American Ill 

America for Me 112 

"A Precedent" 114 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

For Cuba 117 

High Points 118 

True Americanism 122 

The Homes of the People 123 

Home, Sweet Home 127 

America Wakes 129 

Germany's Sins Against America 131 

The War Message 132 

Old Ties Renewed 137 

The Ship of State 142 

Soldiers of Freedom 143 

A Toast 145 

Loyalty 146 

The Nation in Arms 150 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

" Content to find where'er her flag shall wave 
Thy glory or thy grave ! " Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Patrick Henry before the House of Burgesses .... 14 

The fight on Lexington Common ........ 20 

The signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 

1776, at Philadelphia 38 



THE AMERICAN CREED 

I BELIEVE in the United States of America 
as a government of the people, by the people, 
for the people; whose just powers are derived 
from the consent of the governed; a democracy 
in a republic; a sovereign nation of many 
sovereign States; a perfect union, one and in- 
separable; established upon those principles 
of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity 
for which American patriots sacrificed their 
lives and fortunes. 

I therefore believe it is my duty to my 
country to love it; to support its constitution; 
to obey its laws; to respect its flag, and to de- 
fend it against all enemies. 

William Tyler Page. 



TO THE YOUNG AMERICAN 

Did you ever try to think just what we 
mean when we say that our country is the land 
of the ''free?" 

This morning you jumped out of bed and 
drew in deep, deep drafts of the sweet Hfe- 
giving air which flows all about us. You did 
not think about the air, because you are so 
used to it. You did not, for one moment, re- 
member that to it you owe that joyous impulse 
to run and shout — that strength to do your 
tasks well — which awoke with you. 

The freedom which your country gives you 
is like the air, in that it surrounds you always. 
And because it surrounds you always, because 
your young spirit breathes deep of its life- 
sweetening, joy-giving draft at every moment, 
you forget that it is there. 

This little book is to help you remember. 

This morning you waked up in a home that 
is free — freer than the same home would be 



2 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

in any other country in the whole round world. 
Every man twenty-one years of age in that 
home helps to make the laws which he must 
obey. 

Every person there has the right to choose 
what trade or profession he will follow. 

Each one there has the right to worship God 
according to his own conscience, and none is 
taxed by law to help support any church. 
What church he will support, if any, is left 
entirely with each. 

Any person in that home of yours has the 
right to win for himself a position in the highest 
society in the land. 

In other words, each person in your Amer- 
ican home has the right, and is aided in ob- 
taining the opportunity, to grow and develop 
to his highest; and if he fails to do this, it is 
because he himself has not worked and studied 
as he should. 

And you ? 

In your home this morning you were under 
no restraint whatever, except that which your 
loving parents threw about you for your own 
good. You took the freedom of the street as 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 3 

you took its sunshine, and if the policeman 
watched, it was to see that you met with no 
harm. 

You came to a school which is free — whose 
opportunities, the finest in the world, are offered 
equally to every child who comes. Before as- 
signing you to a place with the others, the 
teacher did not take into consideration whether 
you were native-born, or whether you were of 
Russian, Greek, German, Italian, or any other 
foreign blood. She merely smiled you a wel- 
come, and at once placed you on an equal foot- 
ing with all those other little Americans in her 
school of wonderful opportunities. 

Such, then, are some of the reasons why 
America is called '*the land of the free." 

Now, what are you going to give to your 
country in return for all the good gifts she has 
showered upon you ? She asks of you one thing 
only — the making of one loyal, efficient citizen 
— the citizen you are capable of becoming. 

The first step toward loyalty is understand- 
ing. America does not ask of her citizens a 
blind, unreasoning partisanship — she asks their 



4 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

intelligent co-operation. Your first duty, then, 
is to understand America. 

In this little volume an attempt has been 
made to show the growth of the American spirit 
from its first struggling awakening to the pres- 
ent time, by bringing together the best expres- 
sions of the faith that is hers. It will be one 
act of service to your country to give intelligent 
heed to what her wise and gifted men have to 
say. 

A BIT OF HISTORY 

In order to understand America, we must 
first understand the beginning of America. 
The United States was settled mainly by the 
English, and the history of our thirteen original 
colonies is properly but a chapter out of Eng- 
lish history. The Colonists were merely Eng- 
lishmen who, having been denied rights which 
other Englishmen enjoyed, moved on to find a 
larger freedom, the ideal of which, they brought 
with them, England, then, is "the mother of 
our faith, our law, our lore." 

Virginia, the first New World settlement 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 5 

made by the English, became the Great Ad- 
venture for fortune's younger sons. Wealth, 
power, happiness beckoned from the West, 
and the daring and ambitious Cavalier an- 
swered. 

The history of the colony of Virginia is one 
chapter in the history of the American spirit. 
Virginia became the first battle-ground for 
civil liberty in the New World. Though a 
** royal colony," and subject to rulers appointed 
by the King, these first Americans made things 
interesting for their royal oppressors from the 
beginning. And one year before the Puritan 
Mayflower touched at Plymouth, their repre- 
sentatives met in the first law-making body 
in America — the Virginia House of Burgesses. 
From that moment, the fight for American 
liberty was on. And the right of these first 
Americans to make [^laws for themselves was 
never again yielded, not even to a jealously 
repentant king. 

If the opening battle of the fight for civil 
liberty was waged on Virginia soil, the great 
struggle for religious freedom had its first and 
surest triumph in New England. -.-rA, ^ > - : 



6 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

It is an old and beautiful story, how the 
persecuted Puritans of England fled to the 
rock-bound coast of Massachusetts for freedom 
to worship God according to their own con- 
sciences. 

But the American spirit in the making was 
evidenced in the Puritans by characteristics 
other than their desire for religious freedom. 
They brought with them to the New World 
ideals of justice and equality and obedience 
to law. While at anchorage in Massachusetts 
Bay, and before their weary feet had yet touched 
the soil of their promised land, the Pilgrims on 
the little Mayflower drew up a constitution of 
government — the first of its kind in America. 

In quaint phrases they set down the simple 
doctrine which they were afterward to seal 
with their blood: 

**In ye name of God. Amen. We . . . doe 
by these presents solemnly & mutualy in ye 
presence of God, and one of another, convenant 
& combine our selves togeather into a civill 
body politick, for our better ordering & pres- 
ervation & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; 
and by vertue hereof to enacte, constitute, and 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 7 

frame such just & equall lawes ... as shall 
be thought most meete & convenient for ye 
generall good of ye Colonic, unto which we 
promise all due submission and obedience." 

But it was left to William Penn and his 
Quaker colony of Pennsylvania to furnish the 
ideal of a gentler, sweeter freedom. Untouched 
alike by the lordly pride of the Cavalier and 
the austerity of the rock-ribbed Puritan, Wil- 
liam Penn greeted his "vassals and subjects" 
as friends, and assumed his rule over them as 
might have done an elder brother. His procla- 
mation to them reads: 

"My Friends: I wish you all happiness 
here and hereafter. These are to lett you know, 
that it hath pleased God in his Providence to 
cast you within my Lott and Care. It is a busi- 
ness, that though I never undertook before, 
yet God has given me an understanding of my 
duty and an honest minde to doe it uprightly. 
I hope you will not be troubled at your chainge 
and the king's choice; for you are now iBxt, 
at the mercy of no Governour that comes to 
make his fortune great. You shall be governed 
by laws of your own makeing, and live a free, 



8 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

and if you will, a sober, and industreous People. 
I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress 
his person. God has furnisht me with a better 
resolution, and has given me his grace to keep 
it. In short, what ever sober and free men can 
reasonably desire for the security and improve- 
ment of their own happiness, I shall heartily 
comply with — I beseech God to direct you in 
the way of righteousness, and therein prosper 
you and your children after you. I am your 



"The Historians' History of the World " thus 
describes Penn's "first grand treaty with the 
Indians": 

"Under the shelter of the forest, now leaf- 
less by the frosts of Autumn, Penn proclaimed 
to the men of the Algonquin race the same 
simple message of peace and love. . . . The 
English and the Indian should respect the same 
moral law, should be alike secure in their pur- 
suits and their possessions, and adjust every 
difference by a peaceful tribunal, composed 
of an equal number of men from each race. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 9 

*We meet' — such were the words of WilHam 
Penn — 'on the broad pathway of good faith 
and good will; no advantage shall be taken on 
either side, but all shall be openness and love. 
I will not call you children, for parents some- 
times chide their children too severely; nor 
lirothers only, for brothers differ. The friend- 
ship between me and you I will not compare 
to a chain; for that the rains might rust, or 
the falling tree might break. We are the same 
as if one man's body were to be divided into 
two parts; we are all one flesh and blood.' 

"The children of the forest were touched 
by the sacred doctrine, and renounced their 
guile and their revenge. They received the 
presents of Penn in sincerity; and with hearty 
friendship they gave the belt of Wampum. 
*We will live,' said they, 'in love with William 
Penn and his children, as long as the moon and 
the sun shall endure.' 

"This treaty of peace and friendship was 
made under the open sky, by the side of the 
Delaware, with the sun and the river and the 
forest for witnesses. Penn came without arms; 
he declared his purpose to abstain from violence; 



10 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

he had no message but peace; and not a drop 
of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian." 

Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania 
were three of thirteen English colonies in 
America, and were typical of all the rest. In 
each and every one the love of liberty became 
deeply rooted. 

Yet it must not be claimed for America 
that she sprang into being, the champion of 
an ideal liberty. Those old Cavaliers, those 
old Puritans, those various others who came 
after, were not saints, but were men swayed 
at once by human virtues and human failings. 
Neither had they conceived of an ideal liberty. 
They made many mistakes as have their de- 
scendants. They stumbled, surely, but they 
stumbled toward the light ! 

Being Englishmen — though living on this 
side of the Atlantic — these Colonists came more 
and more to claim the rights enjoyed by other 
British subjects. 

But Great Britain was at that time ruled 
by a king of foreign blood who was not in sym- 
pathy with the true British love of liberty, so 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 11 

the Colonists were denied the rights for which 
they appealed. Worse followed, and still worse, 
colony after colony resisting — and then the 
storm of revolution broke. 

Massachusetts defied the King. 

The King despatched an army to compel 
Massachusetts to obedience. 

The news flew. And though these colonies 
had no connection with each other, Patrick 
Henry of Virginia declared: "An attack on 
Massachusetts is an attack on Virginia!" In 
that declaration the Union which was to he found 
prophetic voice. 

WARREN'S ADDRESS TO THE 
AMERICAN SOLDIERS 

BY JOHN PIERPONT 

Stand ! the ground's your own, my braves ! 
Will ye give it up to slaves ? 
Will ye look for greener graves.^ 

Hope ye mercy still .^ 
What's the mercy despots feel.^ 
Hear it in that battle-peal ! 
Read it on yon bristling steel ! 

Ask it, — ye who will. 



12 



MY COUNTRYS VOICE 
Fear ye foes who kill for hire? 
Will ye to your homes retire? 
Look behind you ! they're afire ! 

And, before you, see 
Who have done it 1-From the vae 

On they come '.-And will ye quail ?- 
Leaden rain and iron hail 
Let their welcome be ! 

In the God of battles trust ! 
Die we may,-and die we must; 
But, oh, where can dust to dust 

Be consigned so well, 
As where Heaven its dew shall shed 
On the martyred patriot's bed. 
And the rocks shall raise their head, 
Of his deeds to tell ! 



HENRY'S APPEAL TO VIRGINIA 

In spite of the fact that Virginia had been 
J totlt the oppression of the King, she 
wa slower than Massachusetts to sprmg to 
Zs in revolution against him. It was whde 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 13 

she hesitated, that Patrick Henry made in the 
Virginia Convention this thrilHng speech on 
behalf of putting that colony in a state of de- 
fense: 

"Mr. President, it is natural for man to 
indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt 
to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and 
listen to the song of that siren till she trans- 
forms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise 
men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle 
for liberty .^ 

"Are we disposed to be of the number of 
those who, having eyes, see not, and, having 
ears, hear not, the things which so nearly con- 
cern their temporal salvation .^ For my part, 
whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am 
willing to know the whole truth, to know the 
worst, and to provide for it. 

"I have but one lamp by which my feet are 
guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I 
know of no way of judging of the future but by 
the past. And, judging by the past, I wish to 
know what there has been in the conduct of 
the British ministry, for the last ten years, to 
justify those hopes with which gentlemen have 



14 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

been pleased to solace themselves and the 
house? . . . 

" Are fleets and armies necessary to a work 
of love and reconciliation? Have we shown 
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that 
force must be called in to win back our love? 
Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are 
the implements of war and subjugation, — the 
last arguments to which Kings resort. . . . 

"They are meant for us: they can be meant 
for no other. 

"They are sent over to bind and rivet upon 
us those chains which the British ministry have 
been so long forging. . . . 

"Shall we resort to entreaty and humble 
supplication ? What terms shall we find, which 
have not been already exhausted? Let us not, 
I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. 

"Sir, we have done everything that could 
be done, to avert the storm which is now coming 
on. . . . 

"If we wish to be free, if we mean to pre- 
serve inviolate these inestimable privileges for 
which we have been so long contending, . . . 
we must fight. I repeat it, sir, we must fight. 




Patrick Henry before the House of Burgesses 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 15 

An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, 
is all that is left us. 

'*'They tell us, sir, that we are weak, — unable 
to cope with so formidable an adversary. But 
when shall we be stronger ? Will it be the next 
week, or the next year.'^ Will it be when we 
are totally disarmed, and when a British guard 
shall be stationed in every house .^ . . . 

"Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper 
use of those means which the God of nature 
hath placed in our power. Three millions of 
people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and 
in such a country as that which we possess, are 
invincible by any force which our enemy can 
send against us. 

"Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles 
alone. There is a just God who presides over 
the destinies of nations, and who will raise up 
friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, 
sir, is not to the strong alone: it is to the vigilant, 
the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have 
no election. If we were base enough to desire 
it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. 

"There is no retreat, but in submission and 
slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking 



16 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

may be heard on the plains of Boston. The 
war is inevitable; and let it come ! — I repeat 
it, sir, let it come. It is vain, sir, to extenuate 
the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace ! 
but there is no peace. The war is actually be- 
gun. 

''The next gale that sweeps from the north 
will bring to our ears the clash of resounding 
arms. Our brethren are already in the field. 
Why stand we here idle.^ What is it that gen- 
tlemen wish.f^ What would they have.^ Is 
life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased 
at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, 
Almighty God ! I know not what course others 
may take; but, as for me, give me liberty, or 
give me death !" 

ENGLISH DEFENSE OF THE COLONIES 

We must not let Patrick Henry's fiery elo- 
quence lead us to believe that all our kinsmen 
across the sea were willing to see the American 
Colonists deprived of their just rights as British 
subjects. 

True, the Kingr— of foreign blood, by the 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 17 

way — was determined to exact from America 
all that Americans would yield, and many of 
his subjects followed his lead. 

But some of the most influential men in 
the empire threw all their weight against the 
oppression of these Britons in America. 

William Pitt, the great Earl of Chatham, 
caused himself to be borne from a bed of illness 
to Parliament in order to protest to the House 
of Lords against the existing injustice to the 
Colonists. 

"This country," he said, "has no right to 
tax America." And again he declared that the 
cause of America was the cause of all men who 
were true Liberals in England. "The Colonists," 
he thundered, "are our compatriots. I trust 
that freemen in England do not desire to see 
three million Englishmen slaves in America!" 

In the House of Commons also America 
had staunch friends. Edmund Burke, the bril- 
liant orator, championed the cause of America 
with all his passionate Irish heart. 

"In this character of the Americans," he 
declared, "a love of freedom is the predominat- 
ing feature which marks and distinguishes the 



18 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

whole. . . . This fierce spirit of Hberty is 
stronger in the Enghsh colonies, probably, than 
in any other people of the earth. . . . The 
people of the colonies, sir, are descendants of 
Englishmen. England, sir, is a nation which 
still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her 
freedom. The colonies emanated from you 
when this part of your character was most pre- 
dominant; and they took this bias and direction 
the moment they parted from your hands. 
They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, 
but to liberty according to English ideas and 
on English principles." 

But in spite of Chatham and Burke and 
other supporters of the true British ideal of lib- 
erty, the King's influence prevailed; and it was 
not long before the oppressed Colonists rose in 
arms to fight for their rights as British subjects. 

It must be remembered that when the 
American Revolution broke out, the Colonists 
were at first merely struggling to gain their 
just rights. And it was not until after the fight- 
ing began, that they conceived the idea of sever- 
ing all connection between America and the 
mother country. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 19 

THE MINUTEMAN OF THE 
REVOLUTION 

BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 

On Tuesday, April 18, 1775, Gage, the royal 
governor, who had decided to send a force to 
Concord to destroy the stores, picketed the 
roads from Boston into Middlesex, to prevent 
any report of the intended inarch from spread- 
ing into the country. But the very air was 
electric. In the tension of the popular mind, 
every sound and sight was significant. In the 
afternoon, one of the governor's grooms strolled 
into a stable where John Ballard was cleaning 
a horse. John Ballard was a Son of Liberty; 
and when the groom idly remarked in nervous 
English ''about what would occur to-morrow," 
John's hand shook and, asking the groom to 
finish cleaning the horse, he ran to a friend, 
who carried the news straight to Paul Revere. 

Gage thought that his secret had been kept, 
but Lord Percy, who had heard the people say 
on the Common that the troops would miss 
their aim, undeceived him. Gage instantly 
ordered that no one should leave the town. 



20 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

But Doctor Warren was before him and, as the 
troops crossed the river, Paul Revere was row- 
ing over the river farther down to Charlestown, 
having agreed with his friend, Robert Newman, 
to show lanterns from the belfry of the Old 
North Church: 

"One, if by land, and two, if by sea," 

as a signal of the march of the British. 

It was a brilliant April night. The winter 
had been unusually mild and the spring very 
forward. The hills were already green; the 
early grain waved in the fields, and the air was 
sweet with blossoming orchards. Under the 
cloudless moon the soldiers silently marched, 
and Paul Revere swiftly rode, galloping through 
Medford and West Cambridge, rousing every 
house as he went, spurring for Lexington and 
Hancock and Adams, and evading the British 
patrols, who had been sent out to stop the 
news. 

Stop the news ! Already the village church- 
bells were beginning to ring the alarm as the 
pulpits beneath them had been ringing for many 
a year. In the awakening houses lights flashed 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 21 

from window to window. Drums beat faintly 
far away and on every side. Signal-guns flashed 
and echoed. The watch -dogs barked; the cocks 
crew. 

Stop the news ! Stop the sunrise ! The 
murmuring night trembled with the summons 
so earnestly expected, so dreaded, so desired. 
And as, long ago, the voice rang out at mid- 
night along the Syrian shore, wailing that great 
Pan was dead, but in the same moment the 
choiring angels whispered, "Glory to God in 
the highest, for Christ is born," so, if the stern 
alarm of that April night seemed to many 
a wistful and loyal heart to portend the pass- 
ing glory of British dominion and the tragical 
chance of war, it whispered to them with pro- 
phetic inspiration, ''Good will to men; America 
is born !" 

There is a tradition that long before the 
troops reached Lexington an unknown horse- 
man thundered at the door of Captain Joseph 
Robbins in Acton, waking every man and woman 
and the babe in the cradle, shouting that the 
regulars were marching to Concord and the 
rendezvous was the old North Bridge. Cap- 



22 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

tain Robbins's son, a boy of ten years, heard 
the summons in the garret where he lay, and 
in a few minutes was on his father's old mare, 
a young Paul Revere, galloping along the road 
to rouse Captain Isaac Davis, who commanded 
the minutemen of Acton. The company as- 
sembled at his shop, formed, and marched a 
little way, when he halted them and returned 
a moment to his house. He said to his wife: 
*'Take good care of the children," kissed her, 
turned to his men, gave the order to march, 
and saw his home no more. Such was the his- 
tory of that night in how many homes ! 

The hearts of those men and women of 
Middlesex might break, but they could not 
waver. They had counted the cost. They 
knew what and whom they served; and, as 
the midnight summons came, they started up 
and answered: 

"Here am I!" 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 2 

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE 

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend, "If the British march 
By land or sea from the town to-night. 
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, — 
One, if by land, and two, if by sea; 
And I on the opposite shore will be. 
Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every Middlesex village and farm. 
For the country folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said, "Good night !" and with muffled oar 
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore. 

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street, 
Wanders and watches with eager ears, 
Till in the silence around him he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door. 
The sound of arms and the tramp of feet. 
And the measured tread of the grenadiers. 
Marching down to their boats on the shore. 



24 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Then he chmbed the tower of the Old North Church, 
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 
To the belfry-chamber overhead. 



Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride. 
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 
Now he patted his horse's side. 
Now gazed at the landscape far and near. 
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, 
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; 
But mostly he watched with eager search 
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church, 
As it rose above the graves on the hill, 
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 
And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry's height 
A ghmmer, and then a gleam of light ! 
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns. 
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 
A second lamp in the belfry burns ! 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark. 

And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet : 

That was all ! And yet, through the gloom and the 

light. 
The fate of a nation was riding that night; 
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight. 
Kindled the land into flames with its heat. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 25 

He has left the village and mounted the steep. 
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep. 
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; 
And under the alders that skirt its edge, 
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge. 
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. 

It was twelve by the village clock. 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 

He heard the crowing of the cock, 

And the barking of the farmer's dog. 

And felt the damp of the river fog. 

That rises after the sun goes down. 

It was one by the village clock, 

When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 

Swim in the moonlight as he passed. 

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 

Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 

As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock. 

When he came to the bridge in Concord town. 

He heard the bleating of the flock. 

And the twitter of birds among the trees. 

And felt the breath of the morning breeze 

Blowing over the meadows brown. 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 

Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Who that day would be lying dead, 
Pierced by a British musket-ball. 

You know the rest. In the books you have read, 
How the British Regulars fired and fled, — 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane. 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 

So through the night rode Paul Revere; 

And so through the night went his cry of alarm 

To every Middlesex village and farm, — 

A cry of defiance and not of fear, 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door. 

And a word that shall echo forevermore ! 

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 

Through all our history, to the last. 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need. 

The people will waken and listen to hear 

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 

And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 27 

THE CONCORD HYMN 

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great phi- 
losopher and poet of New England, has pre- 
served in verse the dramatic moment when 
the "embattled farmers" of Massachusetts 
fired the first shot of the Revolution. Stern 
for their rights, granite as New England, the 
patriots of Concord and Lexington took the 
first step in the struggle that made us a nation 
and raised on high those ideals of freedom and 
justice for which Americans have ever been 
willing to fight and die. The hymn was sung 
at the completion of the battle monument, 
April 19, 1836, on the sixty-first anniversary 
of the fight at Concord. 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The foe long since in silence slept; 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 



28 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 
We set to-day a votive stone; 

That memory may their deed redeem, 
When, Hke our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
To die, and leave their children free, 

Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
The shaft we raise to them and thee. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 

BY JOHN HALL INGHAM 

This was the man God gave us when the hour 

Proclaimed the dawn of Liberty begun; 

Who dared a deed, and died when it was done. 

Patient in triumph, temperate in power — 

Not striving hke the Corsican to tower 

To heaven, nor Hke great Philip's greater son 

To win the world and weep for worlds unwon, 

Or lose the star to revel in the flower. 

The lives that serve the eternal verities 

Alone do mould mankind. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 29 

WASHINGTON 

BY HARRIET MONROE 

Ah, hero of our younger race ! 

Great builder of a temple new ! 
Ruler, who sought no lordly place ! 

Warrior, who sheathed the sword he drew ! 
Lover of men, who saw afar 
A world unmarred by want or war, 
Who knew the path, and yet forbore 
To tread, till all men should implore; 
Who saw the light, and led the way 
Where the gray world might greet the day; 

Father and leader, prophet sure. 

Whose will in vast works shall endure, 
How shall we praise him on this day of days. 
Great son of fame who has no need of praise? 

LAFAYETTE— THE FRIEND OF AMERICA 

No story out of romance, no legend of the 
heroic age is more inspiring than the history of 
Lafayette — the friend of America. 

The Marquis de Lafayette was a nobleman 
of France, and was brought up in a time when 



30 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

the titled classes of that country treated the 
common people not only as vassals and slaves, 
but as no better than mere beasts of burden. 
Lafayette was rich, powerful, and popular, and 
was the welcomed associate of the King and 
all his gay court. 

But this darling of fortune one day heard 
the echo of a wondrous story from across the 
seas — the "peasants" in far-off America were 
fighting for liberty ! 

'* Liberty !" What did a marquis of France 
know of *' liberty"? Why, Lafayette himself 
was free ! In the midst of all the cringing servil- 
ity at the court, he had kept his mind free to 
do his own thinking, his heart free to love the 
highest. 

Lafayette heard the call of liberty and an- 
swered. 

You may well believe that the King and 
all the other high-and-mighty ones by whom 
the young marquis was surrounded did not 
share in his sympathy for liberty. Indeed, 
they promptly proceeded to block his way when 
he declared his purpose to go and fight with 
the Americans. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 31 

In the end, Lafayette had to steal out of 
France in disguise and set sail from a Spanish 
port in a vessel bought for the purpose with 
his own money. 

He came ! He helped us to conquer ! 

When Congress refused to commission the 
nineteen-year-old French boy an officer in the 
American army, Lafayette volunteered to serve 
as a private and at his own expense. 

Then Congress, recognizing his sincerity, 
gave him his commission. At twenty years of 
age he was a major-general in the American 
army, and the right hand of the great com- 
mander-in-chief. 

But the favored son of fortune was not seek- 
ing ease or safety. In the terrible winter at 
Valley Forge, he, like Washington, shared the 
suffering and hardships of the men. 

In battle he was brilliant, sometimes fling- 
ing himself from his horse and rushing with 
drawn sword into the thickest of the fight. 
Wounded, he would fight on. He was fearless 
but adroit as a commander, and wise in council 
of war. 

And it was chiefly due to him — ^who came to 



32 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

the help of America when he had to run away 
to do it — that the government of France later 
sent over a considerable land force under the 
Count de Rochambeau, and a fleet of war- 
ships to aid in the struggle for American liberty. 

The friendship which grew up and endured 
between the grave and reverend commander- 
in-chief of the American army and "that red- 
headed French boy" was one of the most beau- 
tiful incidents in our history. But it was more 
than an incident — it was the prophecy of a 
friendship between their two nations which 
was forever to compromise all threatened 
quarrels between them, and deepen with the 
years. 

General Nathaniel Greene once wrote of 
Lafayette: *'The marquis is determined to be 
in the way of danger." But the truth is that 
the marquis was determined to be in the way 
of duty. 

I write "duty" advisedly. Of course, Lafa- 
yette owed no duty to America in the sense 
that Washington did. But he had caught the 
ideal of liberty for mankind, and to this his 
duty pointed. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 33 

We Americans love to remember that Lafa- 
yette went back to France, and there helped 
to establish — after the pattern of free x\merica 
— the glorious Republic of France. 

Vive la France! 

SPIRIT OF THE DECLARATION OF 
INDEPENDENCE— LIBERTY— JUSTICE 

The American Colonists, tired of the wrongs 
and hardships heaped upon them by the home 
government of Great Britain, decided that their 
colonies should be made free and independent 
states, and that these states when free should 
unite under a new government. Accordingly, 
on the 4//i of July, 1776, the Continental Con- 
gress adopted a ringing resolution — published 
a message to all the world — called the "Decla- 
ration of Independence." This declaration cut 
loose the young colonial governments from 
Great Britain and formed a new head govern- 
ment on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, named 
the United States of America. This explains 
why we celebrate the Glorious Fourth — it is 
the birthday of the United States. 



34 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed 
the true creed of human rights, and gave a 
splendid statement of the reasons for govern- 
ment. In part it reads: 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, 
that all men are created equal, that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain in- 
alienable rights, that among these are Life, 
Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That 
to secure these rights. Governments are in- 
stituted among Men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed. That when- 
ever any Form of Government becomes de- 
structive of these ends, it is the right of the 
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute 
new Government, laying its foundation on 
such principles, and organizing its powers in 
such form, as to them shall seem most likely 
to effect their Safety and Happiness." 

Americans believe that the Maker created 
all men with equal rights to life, liberty, and 
happiness. When the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence said that '*all men are created equal," 
it simply meant that they are created with 
the right to have equal chances in the pro tec- 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 35 

tion of their lives, the exercise of their Hberties, 
and the pursuit of happiness. And if all men 
are created with equal rights to liberty, then 
no man is born to he controlled by another, and 
no one is born with tJie right to rule others. 

In discussing this phrase, "all men are 
created equal" as it is used in the Declaration 
of Independence, Abraham Lincoln gave this 
very definite explanation: 

''I think the authors of that notable in- 
strument intended to include all men, but they 
did not intend to declare all men equal in all 
respects. They did not mean to say all men 
were equal in color, size, intellect, moral de- 
velopments, or social capacity. They defined 
with tolerable distinctness in what respects 
they did consider all men created equal — equal 
in 'certain inalienable rights, among which 
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' 
This they said, and this they meant. They did 
not mean to assert the obvious untruth that 
all were then actually enjoying that equality, 
nor yet that they were about to confer it imme- 
diately upon them. In fact, they had no power 
to confer such a boon. The}^ simply meant to 



36 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

declare the right, so that enforcement of it might 
follow as fast as circumstances should permit!" 

But the tyrannical King of Great Britain 
did not believe all men should have equal rights, 
and our wonderful Declaration goes on to say 
of him: 

"The history of the present King of Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and 
usurpations, all having in direct object the 
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over 
these States. To prove this, let Facts be sub- 
mitted to a candid world. 

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the 
most wholesome and necessary for the public 
good. 

"He has forbidden his Governors to pass 
Laws of immediate and pressing importance. . . . 

"He has refused to pass other Laws for the 
accommodation of large districts of people, un- 
less those people would relinquish the right of 
Representation in the Legislature, a right inesti- 
mable to them, and formidable to tyrants 
only. . . . 

"He has dissolved Representative Houses 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 37 

repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness 
his invasions on the rights of the people. . . . 

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, 
Standing Armies without the Consent of our 
legislatures. 

"He has affected to render the Military 
independent of and superior to the Civil Power. 

"He has combined with others to subject 
us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, 
and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his 
Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: 

"For quartering large bodies of armed 
troops among us: 

"For protecting them, by a mock Trial, 
from punishment for any Murders which they 
should commit on the Inhabitants of these 
States: 

"For cutting off our trade with all parts 
of the world: 

"For imposing Taxes on us without our 
Consent: 

"For depriving us in many cases, of the 
benefits of Trial by jury: 

"For transporting us beyond Seas to be 
tried for pretended offences. . . ., - ^ 



38 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

"For taking away our Charters, abolishing 
our most valuable Laws, and altering funda- 
mentally the Forms of our Governments: 

"For suspending our own Legislatures, and 
declaring themselves invested with power to 
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

"He has abdicated Government here, by 
declaring us out of his Protection and waging 
war against us. 

"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our 
Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the 
Lives of our people. 

"He is at this time transporting large Armies 
of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works 
of death, desolation and tyranny. ... 

"In every stage of these Oppressions We 
have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble 
terms: Our repeated Petitions have been an- 
swered only by repeated injuries. A Prince, 
whose character is thus marked by every act 
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the 
ruler of a free people. . . . 

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the 
United States of America, in General Congress 
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge 




The signing of the Declaration of Independence, July i, 1776, 
at Philadelphia 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 39 

of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, 
do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good 
People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and 
declare, that these United Colonies are, and 
of Right ought to be Free and Independent 
States; that they are Absolved from all al- 
legiance to the British Crown, and that all 
political connection between them and the 
State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally 
dissolved; and that as Free and Independent 
states, they have full Power to levy War, con- 
clude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Com- 
merce, and to do all other Acts and Things which 
Independent States may of right do. 'And for 
the support of this Declaration, with a firm 
reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, 
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, 
our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." 

INDEPENDENCE BELL, JULY 4, 1776 

There was a tumult in the city 
In the quaint old Quaker town, 

And the streets were rife with people 
Pacing restless up and down, — 

People gathering at the corners, 

Where they whispered each to each, 



40 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

And the sweat stood on their temples 
With their earnestness of speech. 

As the bleak Atlantic currents 

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore, 
So they beat against the State-house, 

So they surged against the door; 
And the mingling of their voices 

Made a harmony profound, 
Till the quiet street of Chestnut 

Was all turbulent with sound. 

" Will they do it .? " " Dare they do it ? " 

" Who is speaking .? " " What's the news ? " 
" What of Adams V " What of Sherman .? " 

"Oh, God grant they won't refuse !" 
"Make some way there!" "Let me nearer!'* 

" I am stifling ! " " Stifle, then ! 
When a nation's life's at hazard, 

We've no time to think of men !" 

So they surged against the State-house, 

While all solemnly inside 
Sat the "Continental Congress," 

Truth and reason for their guide. 
O'er a simple scroll debating. 

Which, though simple it might be, 
Yet should shake the cliff's of England 

With the thunders of the free. 

Far aloft in that high steeple 
Sat the bellman, old and gray; 

He was weary of the tyrant 
And his iron-sceptred sway, 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 41 

So he sat, with one hand ready 

On the clapper of the bell, 
Where his eye could catch the signal, 

The long-expected news, to tell. 

See ! See ! The dense crowd quivers 

Through all its lengthy line, 
As the boy beside the portal 

Hastens forth to give the sign ! 
With his little hands uplifted. 

Breezes dallying with his hair. 
Hark ! with deep, clear intonation, 

Breaks his young voice on the air: 

Hushed the people's swelling murmur. 

Whilst the boy cries joyously : 
*'Ring !" he shouts, "Ring ! grandpapa, 

Ring ! oh, ring for liberty !" 
Quickly, at the given signal 

The old bellman lifts his hand, 
Forth he sends the good news, making 

Iron music through the land. 

How they shouted ! What rejoicing ! 

How the old bell shook the air. 
Till the clang of freedom ruffled 

The calmly gliding Delaware ! 
How the bonfires and the torches 

Lighted up the night's repose. 
And from the flames, like fabled Phoenix, 

Our glorious liberty arose ! 

That old State-house bell is silent, 
Hushed is now its clamorous tongue; 



42 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

But the spirit it awakened 

Still is living, — ever young; 
And when we greet the smiling sunlight 

On the fourth of each July, 
We will ne'er forget the bellman 

Who, betwixt the earth and sky. 
Rang out, loudly, "Independence;" 

Which, please God, shall never die ! 



THE STORY OF A FLAG 

As Mistress Betsy Ross sat at the little 
window of her upholstery shop in Philadelphia, 
one hundred and forty-two years ago, she saw 
three elegant gentlemen pass and repass on the 
street outside, and she was quite *' flustered" 
when a gentle tap at the door informed her 
that they had stopped and were knocking for 
admittance. She rose, opened the door, and 
courtesied to General George Washington, Mr. 
Robert Morris, and Colonel George Ross. 

The three had called to ask if she would 
make a flag for them. 

Colonel Ross, her husband's uncle, knew that 
she had helped her husband make covers for 
fine furniture, and that since his death she had 
carried on the business by herself. So he nat- 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 43 

urally thought that the capable Httle fingers 
of the capable little lady could fashion a pen- 
nant for the war-swept colonies. 

General Washington had made several de- 
signs which he thought might be suitable, and 
these he now spread out before the eyes of the 
skilful seamstress. 

Yes, she was sure that she could fashion a 
flag from the designs, but suggested' several 
improvements — one of which was the use of 
five-pointed stars instead of the six-pointed 
ones in the General's designs. 

The gentlemen agreed that this would be 
an improvement, but thought that the five- 
pointed star would be too difficult to cut. They 
were very much astonished and pleased, then, 
when the lady folded a slip of paper and, with 
one snip of the scissors, produced a five-pointed 
star. 

Mistress Betsy was then commissioned to 
make a sample banner, and the one which she 
submitted was later adopted by Congress as 
the symbol of America. 

This flag was the one on the field of which 
the stars were arranged in a circle. It floated 



44 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

over the colonies in revolution, and led them 
to a glorious victory at Yorktown. 

In 1795 Vermont and Kentucky were ad- 
mitted to the Union, and Congress decided to 
alter the flag in order to have the same number 
of stripes and the same number of stars as there 
were States. This made fifteen of each. 

The flag remained thus till 1818, and was 
the '* Star-Spangled Banner" which Francis 
Scott Key strained his aching eyes to see through 
that long night of battle. 

By the time five new States were added, it 
was seen that if the number of stripes was to 
be increased with the increasing number of 
States, they would soon be too narrow to be 
discernible at a distance. By an act of Con- 
gress, then, the original thirteen stripes were 
returned to, and it was decided to add in future 
only a new star for each new State. Of course, 
the design of stars in a circle could not be ad- 
hered to, so they were arranged much as we 
have them now. 

General Washington said of the design for 
the flag: 

**We take the stars from heaven, the red 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 45 

from the mother country . . . and the white 
stripes shall go down to posterity representing 
liberty." 

TWO PLEDGES TO THE FLAG 

I give my head and my heart to God and 
my country — one country, one language, one 
flag! 

I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the 
Republic for which it stands — one nation, in- 
divisible, with liberty and justice for all. 



HOW TO TREAT THE FLAG 

During times of peace, the flag is displayed 
on national holidays and on special occasions. 

When our country is at war, however, it is 
proper to fly the flag every day, but it should 
be lowered at night, and should, as far as pos- 
sible, be protected from bad weather. 

The flag should not be hoisted before sun- 
rise nor allowed to remain up after sunset. 

It should never be allowed to touch the 
ground while being hoisted or lowered. 



46 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

"The flag should be saluted by all present 
while being hoisted or lowered, and when it is 
passing on parade or in review. The spectator 
should rise if sitting; halt if walking; and stand- 
ing at 'attention,' salute with the right hand 
in all cases, except that a man in civilian dress 
and covered should uncover and hold the hat 
opposite the left shoulder with the right hand. 

*' Nothing should ever be placed upon or 
against the flag. 

''Neither the flag nor a picture of it should 
be used for any advertising purposes what- 
soever; nor as toys, fans, parasols, paper-nap- 
kins, sofa cushions; nor as a cover for a table, 
desk, or box; nor in any other debasing 
manner. 

"It is unlawful to trample upon, mutilate, 
or otherwise treat the flag with insult or ton- 
tempt; or to attach to it any inscription what- 
soever." 

Remember that the flag is the symbol of 
our liberties — that it has been rendered holy 
by the blood of heroes who gave their lives 
that it might wave. 

Give it your heart. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 47 

THE FLAG GOES BY 

BY HENRY HOLCOMB BENNETT 

Hats off ! 
Along the street there comes 
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums, 
A flash of color beneath the sky: 

Hats off ! 
The flag is passing by ! 

Blue and crimson and white it shines 
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines. 

Hats off ! 
The colors before us fly; 
But more than the flag is passing by. 

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great. 
Fought to make and to save the State : 
Weary marches and sinking ships; 
Cheers of victory on dying lips; 

Days of plenty and years of peace; 
March of a strong land's swift increase; 
Equal justice, right, and law. 
Stately honor and reverend awe; 

Sign of a nation, great and strong 
To ward her people from foreign wrong; 
Pride and glory and honor, — all 
Live in the colors to stand or fall. 

Hats off ! 
Along the street there comes 



48 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums; 
And loyal hearts are beating high: 

Hats off ! 
The flag is passing by ! 



ABOUT OUR CONSTITUTION— THE 
FOUNDATION OF OUR LAWS 

After they had declared their independence 
of Great Britain, the American Colonies became 
real States, each State having a government of 
its own. And then, as we have already told 
you, the States, acting tiirough a Congress, 
formed a "head" government and named it 
''the United States of America." This was 
done by a written agreement, called the "Ar- 
ticles of Confederation." This document was 
really the first constitution of the United States. 

The constitution of a nation, as you may 
know, is the plan and rules of the govern- 
ment. 

It was soon found that under the Articles 
of Confederation the head government and 
the several States were not working well to- 
gether, as the members of any loving family 
ought to work. Some of the States were passing 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 49 

laws that other States did not Hke, so, often, 
there were misunderstandings between them, 
and sometimes really hard feelings. In fact, in 
many ways it was being shown that the ** United 
States" government was not strong enough — 
not well enough made — to be the government 
of a great people. Our country was named 
the ''United" States, but the States were not 
well united, and the head government was not 
strong enough. 

So, on September 17, 1787, our Congress, 
acting by the rule of "Try, try again," agreed 
to and signed another constitution for the United 
States. This new Constitution gave to our 
country what we Americans consider to be the 
best government in the world. With some wise 
changes called "amendments," the Constitu- 
tion of 1787 is the one that we live under to- 
day. We think it the best, because it was made 
by the people, and can be changed by the people 
when they wish, and also because it stands for 
justice, peace, and the blessings of liberty. We 
think that as time goes by, the nations of earth 
will all come to have constitutions similar to 
ours. 



50 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

The opening sentence of our great Constitu- 
tion is in these words: 

"We, the people of the United States, in 
order to form a more perfect union, establish 
justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide 
for the common defense, promote the general 
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to 
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and 
establish this Constitution for the United States 
of America." 

These few lines give in a nutshell the great 
purposes which the people of this country — 
our forefathers — had in mind when they formed 
this government. Everything else in the Con- 
stitution was put there to carry out some one 
or other of these great prime objects. 

The very first object stated in this new Con- 
stitution of the United States was, "to form a 
more perfect union." 

The second was, to "establish justice." 
"Establish" means to make firm; and "jus- 
tice" means fairness and rightness between 
men. Surely, that was a wise and noble pur- 
pose of government ! 

Still another great prime object stated in 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 51 

the Constitution, was, to "insure domestic 
tranquillity." What does this clause mean? 
To make certain and sure that at home, among 
ourselves, the people of these United States 
shall have calm and peace, with justice and 
rightness established between men. It is very 
true that in 1861 our States fell apart into two 
groups, in a bitter quarrel, and fought a four 
years' war. But that war settled the two big 
questions of disagreement between the States — 
it settled the slave question by wiping out slavery 
forever, and it settled the "secession" question 
by deciding that all the people of these States 
are to remain under one head government. 

One of the stated objects of the Constitu- 
tion was, to "promote the general welfare;" 
so our government does many things for the 
betterment of the people. It carries the mails 
for us; it helps in the education of many; it 
keeps rivers and harbors clear and free for the 
passage of boats and ships; it forbids cheating 
and wickedness, protecting the law-abiding 
citizen, and punishing the wrong-doer. These, 
and many other things it does for the good of 
the people. 



52 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

The last stated object in the Constitution 
was to "secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and our posterity." We who live to- 
day, are some of the "posterity" — descendants — 
of those grand old patriots who, more than a 
hundred and thirty years ago, planned this 
government so that it would bring down to us 
also, the "blessings of liberty." 

If they could love us and work for us a hun- 
dred and thirty years ago, then surely we should 
love and defend the good government they 

left to us ! 

* 

AMERICA 

BY SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH 

My country, 'tis of thee. 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing; 
Land where my fathers died. 
Land of the Pilgrims' pride. 
From every mountainside 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country, thee. 
Land of the noble free. 
Thy name I love; 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills; 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 53 

My heart with rapture thrills, 
Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet freedom's song; 
Let mortal tongues awake, 
Let all that breathe partake. 
Let rocks their silence break, 

The sound prolong. 

Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee w^e sing; 
Long may our land be bright 
With Freedom's holy light; 
Protect us by Thy might, 

Great God, our King. 



THE STORY OF A SONG 

BY MAY HARRIS 

It was during our second war with Great 
Britain— this time to defend American rights on 
the high seas— that our national song, *'The Star- 
Spangled Banner," was conceived and written. 

On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key, 
a resident of Baltimore, went on board the flag- 
ship of the enemy fleet which lay at the mouth 



54 MY COUNTRYS VOICE 

of the Potomac. He went under a flag of truce, 
to request the liberation of a friend who had 
been arrested by the British on unjust sus- 
picion of offense. 

The British admiral received Mr. Key cour- 
teously, and promised that his friend should 
be released. But as the bombardment of Fort 
McHenry was about to begin, Mr. Key had to 
stay with the British under guard, till the fight- 
ing should be over. 

It was a terrible experience that — remain- 
ing among the enemy while they attacked the 
defending American fort, and not being able 
to guess which way the battle was going. 

Key stood on deck through the night, lis- 
tening to the cannonading of the British, and 
to the answering guns of the American fort, 
and striving to see through the darkness if the 
beloved flag of his country floated unconquered 
stiU. 

The finng ceased in the night, and the 
watcher on deck waited in impatient anxiety 
for the first light of day to show whether the 
flag flying over the fort was that of the enemy, 
or the Stars and Stripes. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 55 

Dawn came at last, and by its first gleams 
Mr. Key discerned through his glasses the wel- 
come sight of the American flag unharmed and 
free. This moment of exultation brought its 
flash of inspiration. There was an old envelope 
in his pocket, and on the back of it, he wrote 
the stirring words which became, by the eager 
response in the hearts of thousands, the na- 
tional anthem for America. 

To quote Mr. Watterson's glowing words: 

"Key's song was the very child of battle. 
It was rocked by cannon in the cradle of the 
deep. Its swaddling clothes were the Stars 
and Stripes its birth proclaimed. Its coming 
was heralded by shot and shell, and from its 
baptism of fire, a nation of freemen clasped it 
to its bosom. It was to be thenceforth and 
forever freedom's Gloria in ExcelsisJ' 

Mr. Key read the verses to some friends, 
and they insisted that this patriotic song of 
the flag should go to the public at once. It 
was printed and distributed, and by a fortunate 
chance, set to music while the enthusiasm of 
victory was at its height. Its reception was 
wonderful — worthy of the moment and of the 



56 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

song. The people were held by the flash of the 
spirit of victory, the tribute to ideals, the faith 
to country, vibrating in the words that belong 
as vividly to-day, as then, to all Americans. 

The winds of the world have fluttered our 
flag in distant places; it has led American sol- 
diers to victory; it has been a defense and a 
symbol of faith for the living, a last cloak of 
dreams for the soldiers who have died to up- 
hold it; and the song that commemorates it, 
has become one with it — to stir American hearts 
to the patriotism of deed and spirit, to love 
of home, of country, and of God. 

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 

BY FRANCIS SCOTT KEY 

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last 

gleaming — 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds 

of the fight 
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly 

streaming ? 
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air. 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there : 
Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ? 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 57 

On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep. 

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? 
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam. 
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream: 
'Tis the Star-Spangled Banner ! Oh, long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore 

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion 
A home and a country should leave us no more ? 

Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's 
pollution. 
No refuge could save the hireling and slave 
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave: 
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 

Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation. 
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued 
land 
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us 
a nation. 
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
And this be our motto — "In God is our trust": 
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 



58 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL* 

BY KATHERINE LEE BATES 

O BEAUTIFUL for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain. 

For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain ! 
America ! America ! 

God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea ! 

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, 

Whose stern impassioned stress 

A thoroughfare for freedom beat 
Across the wilderness ! 
America ! America ! 

.God mend thine every flaw, 

Confirm thy soul in self-control, 

Thy liberty in law ! 

O beautiful for heroes proved 
In liberating strife. 



* From "America the Beautiful and Other Poems," by Katherine Lee 
Bates; published by the Crowell Company. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 59 

Who more than self their country loved, 
And mercy more than life! 
America ! America ! 
May God thy gold refine, 
Till all success be nobleness. 
And every gain divine ! 

O beautiful for patriot dream 
That sees beyond the years 

Thine alabaster cities gleam 

Undimmed by human tears ! 
America ! America ! 

God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy gpod with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea ! 

THE OPPORTUNITIES OF DEMOCRACY 

BY WOODROW WILSON 

There is nowhere in the land any home so 
remote, so humble, that it may not contain 
the power of mind and heart and conscience 
to which nations yield and history submits its 

processes. 

Nature pays no tribute to aristocracy, sub- 



60 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

scribes to no creed or caste, renders fealty to 
no monarch or master of any name or kind. 

Genius is no snob. It does not run after 
titles or seek by preference the high circles of 
society. It affects humble company as well as 
great. It pays no special tribute to universities 
or learned societies or conventional standards 
of greatness, but serenely chooses its own com- 
rades, its own haunts, its own cradle even, and 
its own life of adventure and of training. 

No man can explain this, but every man 
can see how it demonstrates the vigor of democ- 
racy, where every door is open in every hamlet 
and countryside, in city and wilderness alike, 
for the ruler to emerge when he will and claim 
his leadership in the free life. Such are the 
authentic proofs of the validity and vitality 
of democracy. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

It is but natural that free and happy 
America should keenly sympathize with coun- 
tries not so fortunate. So, when the Spanish 
colonies of Central and South America revolted 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 61 

against the cruel oppression of Spain and — one 
after another — set up a democratic form of 
government fashioned after our own, the United 
States promptly acknowledged them as sister 
republics. 

In her dismay at the loss of her colonies, 
Spain called upon other European Powers to 
help her regain them, and for a while it looked 
as if France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia would 
respond to her call. 

This was a question of deep concern to the 
people of the United States. 

Our President at that time was James Mon- 
roe, a very wise and able man. Monroe talked 
over the matter with Jefferson and Madison, 
and the three agreed that America — including 
both North and South America — should be 
made ''safe for democracy" against the ag- 
gressive monarchies of Europe. In other words, 
that Spain and her like had to keep their hands 
off our young sister republics. 

Accordingly, on December 2, 1823, the Presi- 
dent sent to Congress a message which shortly 
became known the world over as ''the Monroe 
Doctrine." 



62 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

**We should consider any attempt on their 
part to extend their system to any portion of 
this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 
safety. With the existing colonies or depen- 
dencies of any European power we have not 
interfered and shall not interfere. But with 
the governments who have declared their in- 
dependence and maintained it, and whose 
independence we have, on great consideration 
and on just principles, acknowledged, we could 
not view any interposition for the purpose of 
oppressing them, or controlling in any other 
manner their destiny, by any European power 
in any other light than as the manifestation 
of an unfriendly disposition toward the United 
States." 

As Great Britain, the mistress of the seas, 
quietly added her moral support to the firm 
stand taken by the United States, Spain did 
not receive the help she invoked, and lost for- 
ever her South American possessions. 

Nearly a century has passed since the Monroe 
Doctrine was proclaimed to the world, but each 
year of that century our country has stood 
squarely upon its principles. Very recently a 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 63 

splendid new statement of the doctrine was made 
by President Wilson. But we will talk of that 
later on. 

PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! 

BY WALT WHITMAN 

The pioneer spirit celebrated by Whitman in 
this poem is typical of America. The Cavaliers 
who pushed out to the larger hope offered by 
Virginia, were pioneers, as were the Puritans 
who sought religious freedom on the bleak shores 
of Massachusetts. And pioneer sons of Puritan 
and Cavalier, moving westward, step by step, 
conquered the far-stretching wilderness. 

It must be understood that the pioneer is 
not in any sense a destroyer. He does not 
march for the mere love of adventure, but al- 
ways to find a larger freedom. He does not 
pause in order to destroy, but to build to peace 
and civilization. 

We cannot tarry here, 
We must march, my darhngs, we must bear the brunt of 

danger, 
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 



64 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

O you youths, western youths, 
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and 

friendship, 
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with 
the foremost, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

Have the elder races halted ? 
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there 

beyond the seas? 
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the 
lesson, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

All the past we leave behind; 
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world; 
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and 
the march, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

W^e detachments steady throwing, 
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains 

steep. 
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the 
unknown ways. 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

We primeval forests felling. 
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep 

the mines within; 
We the surface broad surveying, and the virgin soil up- 
heaving, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 65 

Colorado men are we, 
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the 

high plateaus, 
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting 
trail we come, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

From Nebraska, from Arkansas, 
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the con- 
tinental blood intervein'd; 
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all 
the Northern, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

O resistless, restless race ! 
O beloved race in all ! O my breast aches with tender 

love for all ! 
O I mourn and yet exult — I am rapt with love for all, 
Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 

All the pulses of the world. 
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement 

beat; 
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, 
all for us, 

Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 



66 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

A NATION OF PIONEERS* 

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

In his admirable series of studies of twenti- 
eth-century problems Doctor Lyman Abbott has 
pointed out tha^ we are a nation of pioneers; 
that the first colonists to our shores were pio- 
neers, and that pioneers selected out from among 
the descendants of these early pioneers, mingled 
with others selected afresh from the Old World, 
pushed westward into the wilderness and laid 
the foundations for new commonwealths. They 
were men of hope and expectation, of enter- 
prise and energy; for the men of dull content 
or more dull despair had no part in the great 
movement into and across the New World. 
Our country has been populated by pioneers; 
and, therefore, it has in it more energy, more 
enterprise, more expansive power than any 
other in the wide world. 

You whom I am now addressing stand for 
the most part but one generation removed from 
these pioneers. You are typical Americans, 
for you have done the great, the characteristic, 

* From an address delivered at Minneapolis, September "Z, 1901. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 67 

the typical work of our American life. In 
making homes and carving out careers for your- 
selves and your children, you have built up 
this State; throughout our history the suc- 
cess of the home maker has been but another 
name for the upbuilding of the nation. The 
men who, with axe in the forest and pick in 
the mountains and plough on the prairies, 
pushed to completion the dominion of our people 
over the American wilderness have given the 
definite shape to our nation. They have shown 
the qualities of daring, endurance, and far- 
sightedness, of eager desire for victory and stub- 
born refusal to accept defeat, which go to make 
up the essential manliness of the American 
character. Above all, they have recognized 
in practical form the fundamental law of success 
in American life — the law of worthy work, the 
law of high, resolute endeavor. 

We have but little room among our people 
for the timid, the irresolute and the idle; and 
it is no less true that there is scant room in 
the world at large for the nation with mighty 
thews that dares not to be great. 

Surely, in speaking to the sons of men who 



68 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

actually did the rough and hard, and infinitely 
glorious, work of making the great Northwest 
what it now is, I need hardly insist upon the 
righteousness of this doctrine. In your own 
vigorous lives you show by every act how scant 
is your patience with those who do not see in 
the life of effort the life supremely worth liv- 
ing. Sometimes we hear those who do not work 
spoken of with envy. Surely, the wilfully idle 
need arouse in the breast of a healthy man no 
emotion stronger than that of contempt — at the 
outside no emotion stronger than angry con- 
tempt. The feeling of envy would have in it an 
admission of inferiority on our part, to which the 
men who know not the sterner joys of life are 
not entitled. 

Poverty is a bitter thing, but it is not as bitter 
as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, 
moral, and intellectual flabbiness to which those 
doom themselves who elect to spend all their 
years in that vainest of all pursuits, the pur- 
suit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself. 

The wilfully idle man has no place in a sane, 
healthy, and vigorous community. . . . 

Infinitely the happiest man is he who has 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 69 

toiled hard and successfully in his life-work. 
The work may be done in a thousand different 
ways; with the brain or the hands, in the study, 
the field, or the workshop; if it is honest work, 
honestly done and well worth doing, that is all 
we have a right to ask. Every father and mother 
here, if they are wise, will bring up their chil- 
dren not to shirk difficulties, but to meet and 
overcome them; not to strive after a life of 
ignoble ease, but to strive to do their duty, 
first to themselves and their families, and then 
to the whole State; and this duty must 
inevitably take the shape of work in some form 
or other. You, the sons of pioneers, if you are 
true to your ancestry, must make your lives 
as worthy as they made theirs. They sought 
for true success, and, therefore, they did not 
seek ease. They knew that success comes only 
to those who lead the life of endeavor. 

It seems to me that the simple acceptance 
of this fundamental fact of American life, this 
acknowledgment that the law of work is the 
fundamental law of our being, will help us to 
start aright in facing not a few of the problems 
that confront us. 



70 IVIY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD 

BY THEODORE o'hARA 

The word ''bivouac" means a camp for 
the night — for rest and sleep. 

The following inspired poem describes the 
camping, for their last long sleep, of Kentucky 
soldiers killed in the war between the United 
States and Mexico. 

At the outbreak of this war — over the south- 
ern boundary of Texas, you will remember — 
many gallant Kentuckians were among those 
who volunteered for the fight. 

The poem refers specifically to the heroic 
slain of the battle of Buena Vista, where the 
small American army under General Zachary 
Taylor was outnumbered by the Mexicans, 
five to one. 

When the greatly unequal forces faced each 
other, General Santa Anna summoned Taylor 
to surrender. 

The answer came back: "General Taylor 
never surrenders !" 

And he did not. Instead, he administered 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 71 

such a terrible punishment to the Mexican 
hordes that the name of Zachary Taylor will 
be remembered there as long as Mexico en- 
dures. 

But though the fight was won, many of 
our bravest and best were lost — among them, 
the young son of the Great Pacificator, Henry 
Clay. Young Clay fell far in advance of his 
command, pierced by a dozen swords. 

Afterward Kentucky "claimed from War 
his richest spoil — the ashes of her brave." Her 
dead were brought back to bivouac for the 
last time on her ''Dark and Bloody Ground." 
This was the inspiration of Theodore O'Hara's 
poem: 

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 

The soldier's last tattoo; 
No more on Life's parade shall meet 

That brave and fallen few. 
On Fame's eternal camping-ground 

Their silent tents are spread. 
And Glory guards, with solemn round, 

The bivouac of the dead. 

No rumor of the foe's advance 

Now swells upon the wind; 
No troubled thought at midnight haunts 

Of loved ones left behind; 



72 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

No vision of the morrow's strife 
The warrior's dream alarms; 

No braying horn, no screaming fife. 
At dawn shall call to arms. 

The neighing troop, the flashing blade, 

The bugle's stirring blast. 
The charge, the dreadful cannonade, 

The din and shout are past — 
Nor War's wild note, nor Glory's peal. 

Shall thrill with fierce delight 
Those breasts that never more may feel 

The rapture of the fight. 

Like the fierce northern hurricane 

That sweeps his great plateau, 
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain. 

Came down the serried foe — 
Who heard the thunder of the fray 

Break o'er the field beneath. 
Knew well the watchword of that day 

Was "Victory or Death !" 

Full many a norther's breath hath swept 

O'er Angostura's plain, 
And long the pitying sky has wept 

Above its mouldered slain. 
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight. 

Or shepherd's pensive lay, 
Alone now wakes each sullen height 

That frowned o'er that dread fray. 

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground ! 
Ye must not slumber there. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 73 

Where stranger steps and tongues resound 

Along the heedless air. 
Your own proud land's heroic soil 

Shall be your fitter grave; 
She claims from War his richest spoil — 

The ashes of her brave. 

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest. 

Far from the gory field; 
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast 

On many a bloody shield. 
The sunshine of their native sky 

Smiles sadly on them here, 
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by 

The heroes' sepulchre. 

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead ! 

Dear as the blood ye gave ! 
No impious footstep here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave; 
Nor shall your glory be forgot 

While Fame her record keeps, 
Or Honor points the hallowed spot 

Where Valor proudly sleeps. 

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone 

In deathless song shall tell, 
When many a vanished year hath flown 

The story how ye fell. 
Nor wreck, nor change, nor Winter's blight. 

Nor Time's remorseless doom. 
Can dim one ray of holy light 

That gilds your glorious tomb. 



74 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 



DISUNION AND WAR 

There came a time when our beloved coun- 
try went down into the Valley of the Shadow 
of Death — when the States of the North and the 
States of the South fell apart over a different 
understanding of American principles, and 
fought a fierce and bloody war. 

And so fierce and so bloody was that 
brothers' strife that the years were long before 
the people of the politically reunited sections 
could speak to each other frankly and calmly 
about the questions which had been at stake — ■ 
for many men were still of many minds and the 
last liberty to be surrendered by the American 
is that of opinion. 

As late as 1903, Cyrus Townsend Brady — 
a Northerner, but one married to a Southern 
woman — wrote : 

"I close my eyes and see once more my 
father, as I saw him on that day nearly forty 
years ago ... a tired, dusty figure in faded 
army blue. 

"And I open them again and my glance 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 75 

falls upon a daughter of the Carolinas, my 
wife. 

*'Her children and mine, typical of an united 
people, cluster about us. They look at me, 
some out of the blue eyes of the North, others 
from the brown ones of the South, and beg for 
a story — a world-wide, world-old appeal ! 

"Can I speak to them of that great war when 
State faced State and section met section in 
our beloved land ? Can I tell the splendid story 
of men of valor and consecration who differed 
so radically that only in the shock of battle 
could they compose their differences.^ Can I 
tell these things, on the one hand, without being 
false to the principles for which my father fought, 
which are my own; and, on the other, without 
giving offense or bitterness to those I love, who 
were on the other side ? Can I be entirely fair ? 
Can I, can any one, to-day write of the Blue 
and the Gray so that they shall both approve.^" 

In other words, as late as 1903, Mr. Brady 
questioned whether the country was really re- 
united at heart. That the re-established polit- 
ical union of the two sections was enduringly 
strong, the writer could not have doubted. And 



76 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

no man doubted then that South, as well as 
North, saw in the perpetuation of the Union 
the hand of God. 

The fundamental issue on which that war 
was fought was the supremacy of States' rights, 
including the right of a State to secede from 
that Union which it had voluntarily entered. 

The South believed in strong State govern- 
ments with a Union of them for their mutual 
protection. 

The North believed rather in one strong cen- 
tral government with the States subservient to it. 

Both were sincere, and each believed firmly 
that her interpretation of the principles on which 
the American Union was founded was the right 
interpretation. 

The clash came over the question of slavery. 

The practice of holding negroes in slavery 
was at first sanctioned and practised by both 
North and South. Gradually, however, the 
South acquired most of the slaves as it was 
soon proven that they lived and worked much 
better in the southern climate. 

It must be understood that the sentiment 
against human slavery was a matter of growth. 



MY COUNTRY'S, VOICE 77 

just as the sentiment against religious persecu- 
tion, which included burning for witchcraft, 
was a matter of growth. All Americans toler- 
ated slavery at first. 

The people of the North, however, were the 
first to become generally aroused to the iniquity 
of the holding in bondage of one man by an- 
other, and they voluntarily set free their few 
remaining slaves. 

New States were being admitted, and with 
the admission of each. South and North struggled 
for and against the extension of slavery into 
the new territory. The conflict of ideas be- 
came increasingly bitter. 

South Carolina withdrew from the Union, 
and was followed quickly by ten other Southern 
States. These eleven seceding States entered a 
union of their own known as *'the Confederate 
States of America," and placed their seat of 
government at Montgomery, Alabama. 

The North, believing that the original Union 
of all the States should not be broken, and de- 
siring passionately to perpetuate it as our fore- 
fathers had left it, determined to restore it at 
whatever cost. 



78 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Both sections rushed to arms. 

The first gun was fired at Fort Sumter, 
April 12, 1861. 

For four long, bitter years, these two great 
sections of the American people wasted their 
superb strength against each other. 

iVnd not in song or in story is there to be 
found loftier devotion to principle, more splen- 
did heroism in action, or finer chivalry of spirit 
in the last accounting than was displayed by 
both sides. This record they have left to us 
as a common American heritage — this with 
the immortal names of Grant, Lee, Lincoln, 
Jackson, Meade, and all the rest ! 

The South — by far the weaker section — 
was overcome. On April 9, 1865, the American 
hero, Lee, surrendered to the American hero, 
Grant, at Appomattox, and the great brothers' 
traged}^ was brought to a close. 

As a result, the Union was restored, and 
the curse of slavery was forever banished from 
our common country. In this, the year of our 
Lord 1918, it would be hard to find a man in 
the South who would change either of those two 
great facts if it were williin liis power to do so. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 79 

Twelve months ago the voice of our re- 
united country spoke, saying: 

''The outposts of American liberty are one 
with the fighting -hue in France. Go and 
defend!" 

And in answer, our bravest and best of 
North and South are even now opposing their 
American breasts to the bayonets of the Huns. 

TO SAVE THE UNION 

The great passion of Abraham Lincoln's 
heart was to save the Union, as will be shown 
by the following letter from him to Horace 
Greeley : 

"Executive Mansion, 
"Washington, August 22, 1862. 

"Honorable Horace Greeley. 

""Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 
19th addressed to myself through the New 
York Tribune. If there be in it any statements 
or assumptions of fact which I may know to 
be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert 
them. If there be in it any inferences which I 
may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now 



80 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

and here, argue against them. If there be per- 
ceptible in it an impatient and dictorial tone, 
I waive it in deference to an old friend whose 
heart I have always supposed to be right. 

"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as 
you say, I have not meant to leave any one in 
doubt. 

"I would save the Union. I would save it 
the shortest way under the Constitution. The 
sooner the national authority can be restored, 
the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it 
was.' If there be those who would not save the 
Union unless they could at the same time save 
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be 
those who would not save the Union unless 
they could at the same time destroy slavery, 
I do not agree with them. My paramount ob- 
ject in this struggle is to save the Union, and 
is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I 
could save the Union without freeing any slave, 
I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing 
all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save 
it by freeing some and leaving others alone, 
I would also do that. What I do about slavery 
and the colored race, I do because I believe it 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 81 

helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I 
forbear because I do not beHeve it would help 
to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I 
shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, 
and I shall do more whenever I shall believe 
doing more will help the cause. I shall try to 
correct errors when shown to be errors, and I 
shall adopt new views so fast as they shall ap- 
pear to be true views. 

''I have here stated my purpose according 
to my view of official duty; and I intend no 
modification of my oft-expressed personal wish 
that all men everywhere could be free. 
"Yours, 

*'A. Lincoln." 



LITTLE GIFFEN 

BY FRANCIS ORRERY TICKNOR 

The following story of ''Little Giffen" shows 
how great was the sacrifice which the South 
offered for the cause she loved and lost. Little 
Giffen was but one of the many thousand 
Southern boys who were called upon to play 
the part of men in the great brothers' war. 



82 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

"Private" John Allen, of Mississippi — at the 
age of fourteen, one of the Confederacy's most 
valued spies — was another. Private John lived 
to serve the reunited nation in Congress, but 
Little Giffen, with many missing others, ''did 
not write." 

Out of the focal and foremost fire, 
Out of the hospital walls as dire; 
Smitten of grapeshot and gangrene, 
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen !) 
Spectre ! such as you seldom see, 
Little Giffen, of Tennessee ! 

"Take him and welcome!" the surgeons said; 

Little the doctor can help the dead ! 

So we took him; and brought him where 

The balm was sweet in the summer air; 

And we laid him down on a wholesome bed — 

Utter Lazarus, heel to head ! 

• And we watched the war with abated breath, — 
Skeleton boy against skeleton death. 
Months of torture, how many such? 
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch; 
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye 
Told of a spirit that w^ouldn't die. 

And didn't. Nay, more ! in death's despite 
The crippled skeleton learned to write. 
"Dear mother," at first, of course; and then 
"Dear captain," inquiring about the men. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 83 

Captain's answer: "Of eighty-and-five, 
Giffen and I are left alive." 

Word of gloom from the war, one day; 

Johnston pressed at the front, they say. 

Little Giffen was up and away; 

\ tear— his first— as he bade good-by. 

Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye. 

"I'll write, if spared!" There was news of the faght. 

But none of Giffen.-He did not write. 

I sometimes fancy that, were I king 

Of the princely Knights of the Golden Rmg, 

With the song of the minstrel in mme ear. 

And the tender legend that trembles here, 

I'd give the best on his bended knee, 

The whitest soul of my chivalry. 

For "Little Giffen," of Tennessee. 

GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

The Battle of Gettysburg-July 1, 2, and 
3 1863-marked the high tide of the war be- 
tween the North and the South. When the 
battle was "lost and won," there were left dead 
on the field thirty-one thousand wearers ot 
the Gray and twenty-three thousand in the 

Blue of the Union. 

This was the greatest battle of the war, 



84 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

and was contested with supreme courage on 
both sides. It proved an overwhelming vic- 
tory for the North. 

One hundred days after the battle — and 
while the struggle was yet at its fiercest, and 
no one knew what the end would be — a portion 
of the field was dedicated by the people of the 
North as a national cemetery. 

Not the mind, but the heart, must conceive 
what that occasion meant to the anxious and 
bereaved who met there that day. It was a 
throng made up of the veterans of many battles, 
of widows and orphans of the dead on many 
fields, of countless others who had suffered 
and were suffering because of Gettysburg and 
all that had gone before. 

Edward Everett, the most distinguished 
orator of the day, made the address of the oc- 
casion, and held his audience spellbound for 
three hours. 

When he had finished, amid thunderous 
applause, there followed him the modest and 
diffident Lincoln who, in two hundred and 
seventy -two words, made one of the greatest 
speeches of all time. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 85 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth upon this continent a new na- 
tion, conceived in Hberty, and dedicated to the 
proposition that all men are created equal. Now 
we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived 
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are 
met on a great battle-field of that war. We 
have come to dedicate a portion of that field 
as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is 
altogether fitting and proper that we should 
do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedi- 
cate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow 
this ground. The brave men, Hving and dead, 
who struggled here, have consecrated it far 
above our poor power to add or detract. The 
world will little note, nor long remember, what 
we say here; but it can never forget what they 
did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be 
dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly 
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedi- 
cated to the great task remaining before us, 
that from these honored dead we take increased 



86 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

devotion to that cause for which they gave the 
last full measure of devotion; that we here 
highly resolve that these dead shall not have 
died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom, and that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth. 

ABOUT THE BATTLE HYMN 

BY MAY HARRIS 

When the United States, once welded by the 
stern struggle of the Revolution, and the faith 
of its founders, into a national republic, was 
in the midst of the bitter strife of the Civil War, 
a time of indecisions, of shadowed faith, of 
terrible gloom spread over the people of the 
North. The outcome was not clear. President 
Lincoln was dispirited, and the discouragement 
of the moment infected the people. Patriotism 
was chilled, and recruiting became a tedious 
task. The two great bodies of the same people, 
brother against brother — foemen by circum- 
stance and fate — were supporting their divisions 
of faith with equal endurance. If the tide of 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 87 

battle turned for the Union, it must be soon, 
for the South was wilUng to pour out the last 
drop of her blood to win the fearful struggle. 

The need was the nation's, and it was great. 
Each man and woman felt it, but it was a 
woman's strength of spirit and depth of soul 
that answered ! 

Julia Ward Howe, after a sleepless night in 
Washington, looking down the deserted avenues 
to the arching dome of the capitol, was touched 
by a magnificent inspiration and wrote the 
" Battle Hymn of the Republic." It came to her 
like a chant of invisible hosts marching to the 
rhythm of victory; the brave words thrill the 
hearts of those who read them to-day, and if 
they so move us now, what must they have 
meant then to the people of the North ! They 
were new oil for the lamp of patriotism, a fresh 
mine of courage for worn and weary men, and 
strong winds of devotion to keep the Star- 
Spangled Banner floating and free. 

In all literature there is nothing comparable 
to Mrs. Howe's magnificent hymn, except the 
song of Miriam — "By Egypt's baffled seas." 

The response to its challenge was a wave 



88 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

of patriotism from East to West. Volunteers 
answered its call by thousands, and marching 
veterans sang it to battle and to victory. 

That war is over — the ghost of its grief and 
terror, buried in the hearts of a reunited people, 
whose hands once more are joined together in 
a union of will and of spirit; but the great 
hymn of the republic, written sixty years ago, 
is still a trumpet call to stir American hearts. 

Julia Ward Howe wa§ past fifty when she 
wrote the battle hymn, and she lived a beauti- 
fully rounded life to the age of ninety-one. No 
American woman — one might say, no woman 
in all the world — has left such a precious legacy 
as the author of those unforgetable lines. 



THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 

BY JULIA WARD HOWE 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the 

Lord; 

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of 

wrath are stored; 

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible 

swift sword: 

His truth is marching on. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 89 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred 

circhng camps; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews 

and damps; 
I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and 

flaring lamps: 

His day is marching on. 

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of 

steel ; 
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my 

grace shall deal; 
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with 

his heel: 

Since God is marching on." 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 

retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment 

seat; 
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my 

feet! 

Our God is marching on ! 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the 

sea. 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and 

me; 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make 

men free, 

While God is marching on. 



90 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

THE END OF THE BROTHERS' WAR* 

History chooses humble scenes for her 
great events. This was so of the meeting of 
Grant and Lee which brought to an end the 
war between the States. 

Appomattox Court House was a sleepy 
little village of but a single dusty street and 
the McLean house, a plain, low structure of 
brick, with a broad piazza. 

Colonel Babcock on the morning of April 
9, 1865, carried to Lee from Grant the last 
of a series of letters that had passed between 
the two generals to arrange a meeting. He 
found Lee near the Confederate picket-line 
half a mile beyond Appomattox Court House. 

"He was lying down by the roadside on a 
blanket which had been spread over a few fence 
rails on the ground under an apple-tree, which 
was part of an orchard. This circumstance 
furnished the only ground for the wide-spread 
report that the surrender occurred under an 

* The quotations in this account of the surrender of Lee are taken 
from General Horace Porter's account in "Battles and Leaders of the 
Civil War," published by the Century Company. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 91 

apple-tree. Babcock dismounted upon coming 
near, and as he approached on foot, Lee sat 
up, with his feet hanging over the roadside 
embankment. The wheels of the wagons in 
passing along the road had cut away the earth 
of this embankment, and left the roots of the 
tree projecting. Lee's feet were partly rest- 
ing on these roots. One of his staff-officers 
came forward, took the despatch which Bab- 
cock handed him, and gave it to General 
Lee." 

This letter told Lee that Grant was ap- 
proaching, and Lee rode back into the village 
and selected the little brick house as the best 
place for a meeting. 

In riding forward with a few officers to see 
Lee, Grant passed through General Sheridan's 
cavalry, which had cut the Confederates off 
from retreat, and from the high ground of Sheri- 
dan's position Grant saw the columns and 
wagon-trains of the Confederates in the valley 
below. As he passed Sheridan, Grant called 
out: "How are you, Sheridan.^" 

"First rate, thank you, how are you?" 
said Sheridan. 



92 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

''Is Lee over there?" asked Grant, and he 
pointed up the village street. 

''Yes, he's in that brick house," answered 
Sheridan. 

"Well, then, we'll go over," said Grant, 
and he rode on with the several officers that 
were with him, mounted the broad steps, and 
entered the house. This was at half past one. 
The two generals and the officers gathered in 
a room furnished with a marble-topped table, 
a sofa, and a few chairs. 

"The contrast between the two commanders 
was striking, and could not fail to attract 
marked attention as they sat ten feet apart 
facing each other. General Grant, then nearly 
forty-three years of age, was five feet eight 
inches in height, with shoulders slightly stooped. 
His hair and full beard were a nut-brown, with- 
out a trace of gray in them. He had on a single- 
breasted blouse, made of dark-blue flannel, un- 
buttoned in front, and showing a waistcoat 
underneath. He wore an ordinary pair of top- 
boots, with his trousers inside, and was without 
spurs. The boots and portions of his clothes 
were spattered with mud. He had had on a 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 93 

pair of thread gloves, of a dark -yellow color, 
which he had taken off on entering the room. 
His felt 'sugar-loaf,' stiff-brimmed hat was 
thrown on the table beside him. He had no 
sword, and a pair of shoulder-straps was all 
there was about him to designate his rank. In 
fact, aside from these, his uniform was that of a 
private soldier. 

'*Lee, on the other hand, was fully six feet 
in height, and quite erect for one of his age, 
for he was Grant's senior by sixteen years. His 
hair and full beard were a silver-gray, and quite 
thick, except that the hair had become a little 
thin in front. He wore a new uniform of Con- 
federate gray, buttoned up to the throat, and 
at his side he carried a long sword of exceed- 
ingly fine workmanship, the hilt studded with 
jewels. It was said to be the sword that had 
been presented to hun by the State of Virginia. 
His top-boots were comparatively new, and 
seemed to have on them some ornamental stitch- 
ing of red silk. Like his uniform, they were 
singularly clean, and but little travel-stained. 
On the boots were handsome spurs, with large 
rowels. A felt hat, which in color matched 



94 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

pretty closely that of his uniform, and a pair 
of long buckskin gauntlets lay beside him on 
the table." 

General Grant began the conversation by 
saying: ''I met you once before, General Lee, 
while we were serving in Mexico, when you 
came over from General Scott's headquarters 
to visit Garland's brigade, to which I then be- 
longed. I have always remembered your ap- 
pearance, and I think I should have recognized 
you anywhere." ''Yes," replied General Lee^ 
''I know I met you on that occasion, and I have 
often thought of it and tried to recollect how 
you looked, but I have never been able to re- 
call a single feature." After some further men- 
tion of Mexico, General Lee said: "I suppose, 
General Grant, that the object of our present 
meeting is fully understood. I asked to see 
you to ascertain upon what terms you would 
receive the surrender of my army." General 
Grant replied: ''The terms I propose are those 
stated substantially in my letter of yesterday; 
that is, the officers and men surrendered to be 
paroled and disqualified from taking up arms 
again until properly exchanged, and all arms, 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 95 

ammunition, and supplies to be delivered up 
as captured property." Lee nodded an assent, 
and said: ''Those are about the conditions 
which I expected would be proposed." General 
Grant then continued: "Yes, I think our corre- 
spondence indicated pretty clearly the action 
that would be taken at our meeting, and I hope 
it may lead to a general suspension of hostili- 
ties and be the means of preventing any further 
loss of life." 

General Lee then suggested that Grant 
put the terms into writing, and this he did in 
a brief paragraph which included the condition 
famous for its simple chivalry that ''the sur- 
render of war materials should not embrace 
the side-arms of the officers." 

General Grant then said: "Unless you have 
some suggestions to make in regard to the form 
in which I have stated the terms, I will have 
a copy of the letter made in ink and sign it." 

"There is one thing I would like to men- 
tion," Lee replied after a short pause. "The 
cavalrymen and artillerists own their own horses 
in our army. Its organization in this respect 
differs from that of the United States." This 



96 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

expression attracted the notice of our officers 
present, as showing how firmly the conviction 
was grounded in his mind that we were two 
distinct countries. He continued: *'I would 
like to understand whether these men will be 
permitted to retain their horses?" 

*'You will find that the terms as written 
do not allow this," General Grant replied; 
"only the officers are permitted to take their 
private property." 

Lee read over the second page of the letter 
again, and said: 

'*No, I see the terms do not allow it; that 
is clear." His face showed plainly that he was 
quite anxious to have this concession made, 
and Grant said very promptly and without 
giving Lee time to make a direct request: 

"Well, the subject is quite new to me. Of 
course, I did not know that any private soldiers 
owned their animals; but I think this will be 
the last battle of the war — I sincerely hope 
so — and that the surrender of this army will 
be followed soon by that of all the others, and 
I take it that most of the men in the ranks are 
small farmers, and as the country has been so 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 97 

raided by the two armies, it is doubtful whether 
they will be able to put in a crop to carry them- 
selves and their families through the next winter 
without the aid of the horses they are now rid- 
ing, and I will arrange it in this way: I will 
not change the terms as now written, but I 
will instruct the officers I shall appoint to re- 
ceive the paroles to let all the men who claim 
to own a horse or mule take the animals home 
with thejn to work their little farms. ..." 

''Lee now looked greatly relieved, and 
though anything but a demonstrative man, he 
gave every evidence of his appreciation of this 
concession, and said: 'This will have the best 
possible effect upon the men. It will be very 
gratifying and will do much toward conciliat- 
ing our people.' " 

After this the terms of surrender were copied 
in ink, matters of detail were discussed, and 
Grant's officers were presented to Lee. He 
received them with that quiet consideration 
and dignity of bearing which in itself always 
convinced those who saw him of his natural 
greatness and nobility. 

"At a little before four o'clock General 



98 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Lee shook hands with General Grant, bowed 
to the other officers, and with Colonel Mar- 
shall left the room. Lee signalled to his orderly 
to bring up his horse, and while the animal 
was being bridled the general stood on the lowest 
step and gazed sadly in the direction of the 
valley beyond where his army lay — now an 
army of prisoners. He smote his hands together 
a number of times in an absent sort of a way; 
seemed not to see the group of Union officers 
in the yard who rose respectfully at his approach, 
and appeared unconscious of everything about 
him. x\ll appreciated the sadness that over- 
whelmed him, and he had the personal sym- 
pathy of every one who beheld him at this 
supreme moment of trial. The approach of 
his horse seemed to recall him from his revery, 
and he at once mounted. General Grant now 
stepped down from the porch, and, moving 
toward him, saluted him by raising his hat. 
He was followed in this act of courtesy by all 
our officers present. Lee raised his hat respect- 
fully, and rode off to break the sad news to 
the brave fellows whom he had so long com- 
manded. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 99 

"General Grant and his staff then mounted 
and started for the headquarters camp, which, 
in the meantime, had been pitched near by. 
The news of the surrender had reached the 
Union Hues, and the firing of salutes began at 
several points, but the general sent orders at 
once to have them stopped, and used these 
words in referring to the occurrence: 'The 
war is over . . . and the best sign of rejoicing 
after the victory will be to abstain from all 
demonstrations in the field.'" 



O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 

BY WALT WHITMAN 

On the 14th of April, 1865, President Lin- 
coln was assassinated by the half-crazed John 
Wilkes Booth. His death came as the last 
stroke of disaster to the South, for, as Henry 
Watterson, the distinguished pubhcist and ed- 
itor, says: 

"The direst blow that could have been laid 
upon the prostrate South was delivered by the 
assassin's bullet that struck him down. He 



100 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

was the one friend we had at court when friends 
were most in need." 

Every American heart must respond to 
the keen anguish expressed in these Unes by 
''the good gray poet": 

O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought 

is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting. 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
daring. 

But O heart ! heart ! heart ! 

Oh, the bleeding drops of red. 

Where on the deck my Captain lies, 

Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 
Rise up ! — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle 

trills. 
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the 

shores a-crowding. 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
turning; 

Here, Captain ! dear father ! 
This arm beneath your head ! 
It is some dream that on the deck 
You've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor 
will. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 101 

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed 

and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object 
won; 

Exult, O shores ! and ring, O bells ! 
But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 



REPLEDGING THE SOUTH TO THE 
UNION 

Robert E. Lee touched the pinnacle of 
greatness when, after defeat, he rallied the 
South to a new pledge of loyalty to the Union. 
This quoted letter from him is but one of many 
such addressed to the people whom he had led 
through the fire of war, and who were ready 
to follow him still along any path he should 
choose. 

"Near Cartersville, Virginia, 
''28th August, 1865. 

''Honorable John Letcher, Lexington, Va. 

''My dear Sir: I was much pleased to hear 
of your return to your home and to learn by 
your letter of the 2d of the kindness and con- 



102 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

sideration with which you were treated during 
your arrest, and of the sympathy extended to 
you by your former congressional associates 
and friends in Washington. The concihatory 
manner in which President Johnson spoke of 
the South must have been particularly agree- 
able to one who has the interest of its people 
so much at heart as yourself. I wish that spirit 
could become more general. It would go far 
to promote confidence and to calm feelings 
which have too long existed. The questions 
which were for years in dispute between the 
State and general governments, and which 
unhappily were not decided by the dictates of 
reason, but referred to the decision of war, 
having been decided against us, it is the part 
of wisdom to acquiesce in the result, and of 
candor to recognize the fact. 

''The interests of the State are, therefore, 
the same as those of the United States. Its 
prosperity will rise or fall with the welfare of 
the country. The duty of its citizens, then, 
appears to me too plain to admit of doubt. All 
should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the 
effects of war, and to restore the blessings of 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 103 

peace. They should remain, if possible, in the 
country; promote harmony and good feeling; 
qualify themselves to vote, and elect to the 
State and general legislatures wise and patriotic 
men who will devote their abilities to the in- 
terests of their country and the healing of all 
dissensions. I have invariably recommended 
this course since the cessation of hostilities, 
and have endeavored to practise it myself. 
I am much obliged to you for the interest you 
have expressed in my acceptance of the presi- 
dency of Washington College. If I believed I 
could be of advantage to the youth of the coun- 
try, I should not hesitate. I have stated to 
the committee of trustees the objections which 
exist in my opinion to my filling the position, 
and will yield to their judgment. Please pre- 
sent me to Mrs. Letcher and your children, and 
believe me, 

'Most truly yours, 

"R. E. Lee." 



104 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 

BY FRANCIS MILES FINCH 

By the flow of the inland river, 

Whence the fleets of iron have fled, 
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, 

Asleep are the ranks of the dead; 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment day; — 
Under the one, the Blue; 

Under the other, the Gray. 

These in the robings of glory. 

Those in the gloom of defeat, 
All with the battle-blood gory, 

In the dusk of eternity meet; — 
Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the judgment day; — 
Under the laurel, the Blue; 

Under the willow, the Gray. 

From the silence of sorrowful hours 

The desolate mourners go. 
Lovingly laden with flowers 

Alike for the friend and the foe; — 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 105 

Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment day; — 
Under the roses, the Blue; 

Under the lilies, the Gray. 

So with an equal splendor 

The morning sunrays fall, 
With a touch, impartially tender. 

On the blossoms blooming for all;— 
Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the judgment day;— 
'Broidered with gold, the Blue; 

Mellowed with gold the Gray. 

So, when the summer calleth, 

On forest and field of grain 
With an equal murmur falleth 

The cooling drip of the rain; — 
Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the judgment day; — 
Wet with the rain, the Blue; 

Wet with the rain, the Gray. 

Sadly, but not with upbraiding. 
The generous deed was done; 



106 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

In the storm of the years that are fading, 

No braver battle was won; — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment day; — 
Under the blossoms, the Blue; 

Under the garlands, the Gray. 

No more shall the war-cry sever, 

Or the winding rivers be red; 
They banish our anger forever 

When they laurel the graves of our dead ! 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment day; — 
Love and tears for the Blue; 

Tears and love for the Gray. 

"OLD IRONSIDES" 

''Old Ironsides'' is our pet name for the 
historic frigate. Constitution. This vessel was 
one of the three first built for the American 
navy, and from the time of her launching in 
1797 she played a dramatic part in the naval 
career of the young republic. The Constitution 
rendered important service against the Bar- 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 107 

bary pirates, helping to sweep them from the 
paths of commerce. In the War of 1812, also, 
she sustained an heroic part. 

The facts of this war — our second with 
Great Britain — seem strangely contradictory. 
To begin with, the war would never have been 
fought but for our weakness on the seas. We 
had no navy worthy of the name, and this fact 
invited aggression and insult. Our ships were 
seized in our own waters, and thousands of 
our sailors were taken by force and compelled 
to serve on British vessels. And yet, the big 
fact stands out that the War of 1812, was won 
by the Americans upon the seas ! 

The Constitution helped us to perform that 
seeming miracle. It was in her fight with the 
Guerriere, when her splendidly seasoned wooden 
hull turned off the shot of the enemy as might 
have done a plating of steel, that she won the 
name we love her by — ''Old Ironsides.'' 

But in time the dear old ship wore out, as 
all ships must, whereupon the secretary of the 
navy proposed to have her taken to pieces. 
You may well believe that the people would 
not permit such a sacrilege. Oliver Wendell 



108 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Holmes voiced the indignation of the whole 
people when he wrote: 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 

\Vhere knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below. 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep. 

And there should be her grave; 
Nail to the mast her holy flag. 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms. 

The lightning and the gale! 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 109 

LINCOLN— THE AMERICAN 

The South Speaks 

"It has been said that the typical American 
has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has 
already come. Great types, like valuable plants, 
are slow to flower and fruit. But from the union 
of these Colonies, Puritans and Cavaliers, from 
the straightening of their purposes and the 
crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through 
a century, came he who stands as the first typical 
American, the first who comprehended within 
himself all the strength and gentleness, all the 
majesty and grace, of this republic, Abraham 
Lincoln. 

''He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, 
for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues 
of both, and in the depths of his great soul the 
faults of both were lost. He was greater than 
Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was 
American, and that in his honest form were 
first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of 
his ideal government, charging it with such 
tremendous meaning and so elevating it above 



110 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

human suffering that martyrdom, though in- 
famously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a 
hfe consecrated from the cradle to human 
liberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions 
and honoring his fathers, build with reverent 
hands to the type of this simple but sublime 
life, in which all types are honored, and in our 
common glory as Americans there will be plenty 
and to spare for your forefathers and for mine." 
Henry Woodfin Grady. 

"One thinks now that the world in which 
Abraham Lincoln lived might have dealt more 
gently by such a man. He was himself so 
gentle — so upright in nature and so broad of 
mind — so sunny and so tolerant in temper — so 
simple and so unaffected in bearing —a rude 
exterior covering an undaunted spirit, proving 
by his every act and word that 

***The bravest are the tenderest, 
The loving are the daring.'" 

Henry Watterson. 

"One of the great sons of men, a man of 
singular, delightful, vital genius who presently 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 111 

emerged upon the great stage of the nation's 
history, gaunt, shy, ungainly, but dominant 
and majestic, a natural ruler of men, himself 
inevitably the central figure of the great plot." 

WooDRow Wilson. 

LEE— THE AMERICAN 

The North Speaks 

"For one I am willing to vote him the lead- 
ing gentleman of his time. . . . Lee, whose 
towering fame, like a softly burning torch, will 
light the face of the Confederacy down the 
murky galleries of time. . . . 

'* Lee's attitude has never, it seems to me, 
had due recognition. Had he yielded to a sense 
of mortification over defeat, had he been ill- 
natured and revengeful, one word from him and 
the conflict would have degenerated into bloody 
and barbarous guerilla warfare. On the con- 
trary, by his dignified, yet full and manly meet- 
ing of Grant on his high level of magnanimity 
and statesmanship, he rendered a great service 
to his country and generation." 

General Morris Schaff. 



112 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

''As a mere military man Washington him- 
self cannot rank with the wonderful war-chief 
who for four years led the army of Northern 
Virginia. . . . 

''Lee will undoubtedly rank as, without 
any exception, the greatest of all the great cap- 
tains that the Enghsh-speaking people have 
brought forth." Theodore Roosevelt. 

"He . . . had never failed in gentle courtesy 
to his officers, in boundless tenderness to his 
men, in humanity to all, and in word and deed 
had proved himself the rarest type of soldier 
and gentleman." ^^^^^ 

AMERICA FOR ME 

BY HENRY VAN DYKE 

'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up 

and down 
Among the famous places and cities of renown, 
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues 

of the kings, — 
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated 

things. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 113 

So it's home again, and home again, 

America for me ! 
My heart is turning home again, and there 

I long to be, 
In the land of youth and freedom beyond 

the ocean bars. 
Where the air is full of sunlight and the 

flag is full of stars. 

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in 

the air; 
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in 

her hair; 
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's 

great to study Rome; 
But when it comes to living there is no place 

hke home. 

I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions 

drilled ; 
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing 

fountains filled; 
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and 

ramble for a day 
In the friendly western woodland where Nature 

has her way ! 



114 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something 

seems to lack: 
The Past is too much with her, and the people 

looking back. 
But the glory of the Present is to make the 

Future free, — 
We love our land for what she is and what she 

is to be. 

Oh, it's home again, and home again, 
America for me ! 

I want a ship that's westward bound to 
plough the rolling sea. 

To the blessed Land of Room Enough be- 
yond the ocean bars. 

Where the air is full of sunlight and the 
flag is full of stars. 



''A PRECEDENT" 

I HAVE told you how, in the Monroe Doc- 
trine, America informed the world that she 
would protect her young sister republics of 
the West from interference by foreign monarchs. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 115 

Now, turn back and read a further clause in 
that same Doctrine: 

"With the existing colonies or dependencies 
of any European Power we have not interfered 
and shall not interfere." 

This policy advanced by President Monroe 
and sanctioned by the people of the United 
States in 1823, expressed the serious conviction 
of the people of America for three-quarters of 
a century. But policies, like nations, grow 
and develop. 

The first definite expansion of our Monroe 
Doctrine was brought about by Spain's treat- 
ment of Cuba, her last colony in the New World. 
The people of Cuba for centuries suffered op- 
pression at the hands of their mother country, 
Spain, and several times had risen in rebellion, 
but only to lose out and to have their chains 
tightened. During each such struggle, the 
free and happy people of our own United States 
were compelled to stand by and witness — with 
wrung hearts — the bitter treatment of the is- 
landers, because we had said we would not in- 
terfere with the colony of a foreign Power. Be- 
sides, the overcautious urged, we lacked '*a 



116 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

precedent." In other words, it was not right 
for us to do what the makers of America had 
not done before us. 

During the Cuban rebeUion of 1894-1898, 
however, when the Spanish were not only 
devastating the island with fire and sword, but 
w^ere penning up to starve the women and chil- 
dren of Cuba, we suddenly realized that we 
did not need a precedent to strike for God and 
humanity. 

President McKinley of revered memory 
and the Congress of the United States had pro- 
tested, but in vain. And we took a long step 
forward. We first recognized the independence 
@f Cuba, and later declared war against Spain 
to help establish that independence. 

Go back to your histories for the glorious 
record — Dewey at Manila, Schley at Santiago, 
Roosevelt and Joe Wheeler at San Juan, and 
Hobson on the Merrimac. Read how Americans 
behaved in that time of testing. And while 
you are reviewing, don't forget to read again of 
the gallantry of the Spanish Admiral Cervera. 
It is American, you know, to appreciate chivalry, 
though it be in a foe. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 117 

Your history will tell you that we won that 
war. Now don't forget — dont ever forget — that 
although — when the end of it came — we had a 
hold upon Cuba which we might have kept 
and strengthened, we did not enforce our govern- 
ment upon her. Our government labored in 
the island till it was redeemed from pestilence 
and disorder, and then withdrew our armies 
and left little Cuba free. 

No, we did not have a precedent for freeing 
a brutally oppressed little people, but, God be 
praised, we did not need one ! 

FOR CUBA 

BY ROBERT MOWRY BELL 

No precedent, ye say. 

To point the glorious way 
Toward help for one down trod in blood and 
tears ? 

Brothers, 'tis time there were ! 

We bare our swords for her, 
And set a model for the coming years ! 

This act, to end her pain, 

Without a hope of gain, 



118 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Its like on history's page where can ye read? 

Humanity and God 

Call us to paths untrod ! 
On, brothers, on ! We follow not, but lead ! 



HIGH POINTS 

I 

In her dealings with the other nations of 
the world, big and little, the United States 
is establishing a reputation for generosity. 

About the year 1900, the government of 
China became powerless to protect, not only 
Europeans and Americans, but those Chinese 
who had become Christians, from the **Boxers" 
— members of a Chinese secret society, who 
were robbing and murdering the people from 
the outside world. The United States, with 
other civilized nations, sent soldiers to China 
to aid that government in putting down the 
Boxers. China agreed, and gave bond to pay 
the United States about twenty-four and a 
half million dollars for our losses and expenses 
on account of the Boxers. Before payment, 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 119 

however, our Congress passed a resolution re- 
ducing the amount to be collected from poor 
old China to about thirteen and a half million 
dollars, thus making that government a present 
of eleven million dollars "as an act of friend- 
ship." 

II 

In spite of the fact that he was called our 
*' fighting President," the world has no greater 
advocate for the right sort of peace than Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt received the 
Nobel Peace Prize of 1906 in recognition of 
his effective work in the settlement of the Russo- 
Japanese War by the treaty of Portsmouth. 

Ill 

America has not always been guiltless of 
land covetousness; therefore, when the Presi- 
dent, speaking before the Pan-American Union 
in 1913, pledged that never again would we 
seek land by conquest, we felt that we had ab- 
solved ourselves from an ancient sin. 

**I want to take this occasion," said Mr. 



120 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Wilson, "to say that the United States will 
never again seek one foot of territory by conquest. 
She will devote herself to showing that she 
knows how to make honorable and fruitful 
use of the territory she has, and she must re- 
gard it as one of the duties of friendship to the 
Latin-American states to see that from no 
quarter are material interests made superior 
to human liberty and national opportunity." 

IV 

When the Panama Canal was finished, the 
United States made the very grave mistake of 
exempting American coastwise vessels from 
paying the toll which was required of all other 
craft. 

England resented this, and held that it was 
a. violation of her treaty with us. 

Many Americans thought that there were 
two sides to the question, but President Wilson, 
appearing before Congress on March 5, 1914, 
said: 

''I have come to ask you for the repeal of 
that provision of the Panama Canal Act of Au- 
gust 24, 191(^2, which exempts vessels engaged 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 121 

in the coastwise trade of the United States 
from payment of tolls, and to urge upon you 
the justice, the wisdom, and the large policy 
of such a repeal with the utmost earnestness 
of which I am capable. 

" We consented to the treaty, its language 
we accepted — and we are too big, too power- 
ful, too self-respecting a nation to interpret 
with too strained or refined a reading the words 
of our own promises just because we have power 
enough to give us leave to read them as we 
please. The large thing to do is the only thing 
that we can afford to do, a voluntary with- 
drawal from a position everywhere questioned 
and misunderstood. We ought to reverse our 
action without raising the question whether 
we were right or wrong, and so once more de- 
serve our reputation for generosity and for 
the redemption of every obligation without 
quibble or hesitation." 

The Act was repealed. 



122 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

TRUE AMERICANISM 

BY HENRY VAN DYKE 

True Americanism is this: 

To believe that the inahenable rights of man 
to hfe, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are 
given by God. 

To believe that any form of power that tram- 
ples on these rights is unjust. 

To believe that taxation without representa- 
tion is tyranny, that government must rest 
upon the consent of the governed, and that the 
people should choose their own rulers. 

To believe that freedom must be safe- 
guarded by law and order, and that the end of 
freedom is fair play for all. 

To believe, not in a forced equality of con- 
ditions and estates; but in a true equalization 
of burdens, privileges, and opportunities 

To believe that the selfish interests of per- 
sons, classes, and sections must be subordinated 
to the welfare of the commonwealth. 

To believe that union is as much a human 
necessity as liberty is a divine gift. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 123 

To believe, not that all people are good, but 
that the way to make them better is to trust 
the whole people. 

To believe that a free state should offer an 
asylum to the oppressed, and an example of 
virtue, sobriety, and fair dealing to all nations. 

To believe that for the existence and per- 
petuity of such a state a man should be willing 
to give his whole service, in property, in labor, 
and in life. 



THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE 

BY HENRY W. GRADY 

A FEW Sundays ago I stood on a hill in 
Washington. My heart thrilled as I looked on 
the towering marble of my country's Capitol, 
and a mist gathered in my eyes, as, standing 
there, I thought of its tremendous significance 
and the powers there assembled, and the respon- 
sibilities there centred — its Presidents, its Con- 
gress, its courts, its gathered treasure, its army, 
its navy, and its sixty million of citizens. It 
seemed to me the best and mightiest sight that 
the sun could find in its wheeling course — this 



124 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

majestic home of a republic that has taught 
the world its best lessons of liberty. I felt that 
if wisdom, and justice, and honor abided there- 
in, the world would stand indebted to this 
temple on which my eyes rested. 

A few days later I visited a country home. 
It was just a modest, quiet house sheltered 
by great trees and set in a circle of field and 
meadow, gracious with the promise of harvest. 
The fragrance of pink and hollyhock mingled 
with the aroma of garden and orchard, and the 
air was resonant with the hum of bees and 
poultry's busy clucking. Inside the house was 
thrift, comfort, and that cleanliness that is 
next to godliness — the restful beds, the open 
fireplace, the books and papers, and the old 
clock. 

Outside stood the master, strong and whole- 
some and upright; wearing no man's yoke; 
with no mortgage on his roof, and no lien on 
his ripening harvest; pitching his crops in his 
own wisdom, and selling them in his own time in 
his chosen market; master of his lands and 
master of himself. 

Near by stood his aged father, happy in 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 125 

the heart and home of his son. As they started 
to the house, the old man's hands rested on 
the young man's shoulder, laying there the 
unspeakable blessing of an honored and grate- 
ful father. 

As they drew near the door, the old mother 
appeared, with the sunset falling on her face, 
softening its wrinkles and its tenderness, light- 
ing up her patient eyes, and the rich music of 
her heart trembling on her lips, as in simple 
phrase she welcomed her husband and son to 
their home. 

Beyond was the good wife, true of touch 
and tender, happy amid her household cares, 
clean of heart and conscience, the helpmate 
and the buckler of her husband. And the chil- 
dren, strong and sturdy, trooping down the 
lane with the lowing herd or, weary of simple 
sport, seeking, as truant birds do, the quiet 
of the old home nest. 

And I saw the night descend on that home, 
falling gently as from the wings of the unseen 
dove. And the stars swarmed in the bending 
skies; the trees thrilled with the cricket's cry; 
the restless bird called from the neighboring 



126 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

wood; and the father, a simple man of God, 
gathering the family about him, read from the 
Bible the old, old story of love and faith, and 
then knelt down in prayer, the baby hidden 
amid the folds of its mother's dress, and closed 
the record of that simple day by calling down 
the benediction of God on the family and the 
home ! 

As I gazed, the memory of the great Capitol 
faded from my brain. Forgotten its treasure 
and its splendor. I said, ''Surely here — in the 
homes of the people is lodged the Ark of the 
Covenant of my country. Here is its majesty 
and its strength. Here the beginning of its 
power and the end of its responsibility." 

The homes of the people: let us keep them 
pure and independent, and all will be well with 
the republic. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 127 

HOME, SWEET HOME 

BY JOHN HOWARD PAYNE 

'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may 

roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home; 
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us 

there. 
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met 

with elsewhere. 

Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 
There's no place like home ! there's no place 

like home ! 

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; 
O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ! 
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call, — 
Give me them, — and the peace of mind, dearer 

than all ! 

Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 
There's no place like home ! there's no place 

like home ! 

How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's 
smile, 



128 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

And the cares of a mother to soothe and 

beguile ! 
Let others dehght 'mid new pleasures to roam, 
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home ! 

Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 
There's no place like home ! there's no place 

like home! 

To thee I'll return, overburdened with care; 
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me 

there; 
No more from that cottage again will I roam; 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like 

home. 

Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! 
There's no place like home ! there's no place 

like home! 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 129 



AMERICA WAKES 

Americans are by nature a happy, home- 
loving people. Apparently safe in their ocean 
isolation, they have gone about their pleasures 
and their business with little thought of world 
complications. 

In the beginning they won liberty for them- 
selves, and very shortly thereafter decreed 
that the liberty won by other American coun- 
tries should not be interfered with from over- 
seas. This done, they rested upon their laurels 
and thought to live happy ever after. 

Then came the Great War, involving in a 
death-struggle with Germany nearly every Eu- 
ropean country including France, the friend 
of our liberties, and England, our motherland. 

America hesitated, because she did not un- 
derstand. She had said that she would stay 
out of European quarrels, and she had held to 
the doctrine. 

America did not know at first that this war 
was to prove a death-struggle between Democ- 
racy and Despotism. If she had known that 



130 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

at first as well as she knows it now, she would 
have reahzed instantly that it was her fight. 

America was herself so kind, so just, so 
"honor-sure," that she could not conceive of 
the masters of Germany as lost to these great 
principles. 

But the dark deeds of the Teutons began to 
strike us awake. The more they shocked us, 
the more we sympathized with their victims, 
and the clearer we saw mortal danger to the 
peaceable nations of earth, ourselves included. 

Then came Germany's order to her to keep 
off the free seas, in her declaration of ruthless 
submarine warfare. 

When, on April 6, 1917, America at last 
formally declared war, it was not on account 
of submarine ruthlessness alone, but on ac- 
count of every sin of Germany's, from the law- 
less invasion of Belgium to that good day when 
America took her proper place on the side of 
world liberty. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 131 

GERMANY'S SINS AGAINST AMERICA 

CONGRESSMAN LINTHICUM OF MARYLAND IN THE 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

As a reward for our neutrality what have 
we received at the hands of WilHam II? 

He has set the torch of the incendiary to 
our factories, our workshops, our ships, and 
our wharfs. 

He has laid the bomb of the assassin in our 
munition-plants and the holds of our ships. 

He has sought to corrupt our manhood with 
a selfish dream of peace when there is no peace. 

He has wilfully butchered our citizens on 
the high seas. 

He has destroyed our commerce. 

He seeks to terrorize us with his devilish 
policy of frightfulness. 

He has violated every canon of interna- 
tional decency and set at naught every sol- 
emn treaty and every precept of international 
law. 

He has plunged the world into the maddest 
orgy of blood, rapine, and murder which his- 
tory records. 



132 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

He has intrigued against our peace at home 
and abroad. 

He seeks to destroy our civiHzation. Pa- 
tience is no longer a virtue, further endurance 
is cowardice, submission to Prussian demands 
is slavery. 

THE WAR MESSAGE 

When German aggression could no longer 
be borne. President Wilson went before Con- 
gress — April 2, 1917 — and asked that body 
to declare that a state of war existed between 
the United States and the Imperial German 
Government. 

Compare the principles laid down in this 
masterly paper with the principles announced 
in the great Monroe Doctrine. Monroe sought 
to protect the republics of both Americas from 
interference by monarchical European Powers. 
President Wilson announces that the world must 
be made safe for democracy ! 

Now pause and look back to the dim be- 
ginnings of American liberty among the burghers 
of Virginia, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, and the 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 133 

friendly wild men who kept faith with William 
Penn. 

By steadfastly setting her face toward the 
light of liberty — at first glimpsed dimly and 
from afar — America has ascended into the full 
radiance of the ideal of world freedom. 

The President speaks to Congress : 

"With a profound sense of the solemn and 
even tragical character of the step I am taking 
and of the grave responsibilities which it in- 
volves, but in unhesitating obedience to what 
I deem my constitutional duty I advise that 
the Congress declare the recent course of the 
Imperial German Government to be in fact 
nothing less than war against the government 
and people of the United States. . . 

'* While we do these things, these deeply 
momentous things, let us be very clear and 
make very clear to all the world, what our mo- 
tives and our objects are. . . . Our object is 
to vindicate the principles of peace and justice 
in the life of the world as against selfish and 
autocratic power, and to set up among the really 
free and self-governed peoples of the world 



134 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

such a concert of purpose and of action as will 
henceforth insure the observance of those prin- 
ciples. 

"We have no quarrel with the German 
people. We have no feeling toward them but 
one of sympathy and friendship. It was not 
upon their impulse that their government acted 
in entering the war. It was not with their 
previous knowledge or approval. It was a war 
determined upon as wars used to be determined 
upon in the old unhappy days, when peoples 
were nowhere consulted by their rulers. . . . 

"A steadfast concert for peace can never 
be maintained except by a partnership of demo- 
cratic nations. No autocratic government 
could be trusted to keep faith within it or ob- 
serve its covenants. It must be a league of 
honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would 
eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles 
who could plan what they would, and render 
account to no one, would be a corruption seated 
at its very heart. Only free people can hold 
their purpose and their honor steady to a com- 
mon end, and prefer the interests of mankind to 
any narrow interest of their own. . . . 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 135 

"We are now about to accept the gage of 
battle with the natural foe to Hberty, and shall, 
if necessary, spend the whole force of the na- 
tion to check and nullify its pretensions and 
its power. - We are glad now that we see the 
facts with no veil of false pretense about them, 
to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world 
and for the liberation of its peoples, the German 
peoples included; for the rights of nations, 
great and small, and the privilege of men 
everywhere to choose their way of life and 
obedience. . . . 

"The world must be made safe for democ- 
racy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested 
foundations of political liberty. We have no 
selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquests, 
no dominion. We seek no indemnities for our- 
selves, no material compensation for the sacri- 
fices we shall freely make. We are but one of 
the champions of the rights of mankind. We 
shall be satisfied when those rights have been 
made as secure as the faith and the freedom of 
nations can make them. 

"It is a fearful thing to lead this great, 
peaceful people into war, into the most terrible 



136 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself 
seeming to be in the balance. 

*'But the right is more precious than peace, 
and we shall fight for the things which we have 
always carried nearest our hearts — for democ- 
racy, for the right of those who submit to au- 
thority to have a voice in their own govern- 
ments, for the rights and liberties of small 
nations, for a universal dominion of right by 
such a concert of free people as shall bring peace 
and safety to all nations and make the world 
itself at last free. . . . 

"To such a task we can dedicate our lives 
and our fortunes, everything that we are and 
everything that we have, with the pride of those 
who know that the day has come when America 
is privileged to spend her blood and her might 
for the principles that gave her birth and hap- 
piness and the peace which she has treasured. 

**God helping her, she can do no other." 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 137 



OLD TIES RENEWED 

Shortly after the United States declared 
war against Germany, England and France 
sent to this country some of their most dis- 
tinguished men to confer with our own about 
the part America was to sustain in the struggle 
for v/orld freedom. We all remember how en- 
thusiastically Sir Arthur James Balfour of Eng- 
land and General Joffre and Minister Viviani 
of France were received by the American 
people. 

Of course they had come to talk of war, 
and at many close councils they perfected their 
giant plans. But during their visit with us, 
these bearers of a mighty burden found time 
to renew old ties. 

On the 29th of April, 1917, Balfour, on the 
part of England, and Joffre and Viviani, rep- 
resenting the land that is kin in spirit to our 
own, together with our own Secretary of State 
and others, made a pious pilgrimage to the 
tomb of Washington. 

It was quietly enacted — that liistoric scene. 



138 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

There was no display, no cold formality. The 
men in whose hands lay the destiny of world 
liberty, turned aside for a space, to do honor 
to the prophetic past. 

In the still sunshine of a perfect spring day 
the little party landed at Mount Vernon, and 
made their way up the green slope together, as 
any less conspicuous pilgrims might have done. 

Before the tomb of the First American they 
stood with bared heads, and offered simple 
but supreme tribute. 

Minister Viviani, speaking for the nation 
without whose help Washington could not have 
achieved success, said: 

''In this spot lies all that is mortal of a great 
hero. . . . 

"In this spot meet the admiration of the 
whole world and the veneration of the Amer- 
ican people. In this spot rise before us the 
glorious memories left by the soldiers of France 
led by Rochambeau and Lafayette. 

"And I esteem it a supreme honor, as well 
as a satisfaction for my conscience, to be en- 
titled to render this homage to our ancestors 
in the presence of my colleague and friend. 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 139 

Mr. Balfour, who so nobly represents his great 
nation. By thus coming to lay here the re- 
spectful tribute of every English mind he shows, 
in this historic moment of communion which 
France has willed, what nations that live for 
liberty can do. 

"When we contemplate in the distant past 
the luminous presence of Washington ; in nearer 
times the majestic figure of Abraham Lincoln; 
when we respectfully salute President Wilson 
the worthy heir of these great memories, we 
at one glance measure the vast career of the 
American people. 

''It is because the American people pro- 
claimed and won the equality of all men, that 
the free American people at the hour marked 
by fate has been enabled with commanding 
force to carry its action beyond the seas. 

"In the name of France, I salute the young 
army which will share our common glory. 

"While paying this supreme tribute to the 
memory of Washington, I ask you before this 
tomb to bow in earnest meditation and all fervor 
of piety before all the soldiers of the allied na- 
tions who for nearly three years have been 



140 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

fighting under different flags for the same 
ideal. . . . 

** Their monument is in our hearts. Not the 
Kving alone greet us here; the ranks of the dead 
themselves rise to surround the soldiers of 
liberty. 

"At this solemn hour in the history of the 
world, while saluting from this sacred mound 
the final victory of justice, I send to the republic 
of the United States the greetings of the French 
Republic." 

When he had finished, there was no ap- 
plause, no stir of any kind. Only, deep down 
in the hearts of the listeners there, a solemn 
repledging of friendship between the land of 
Washington and the land of Lafayette. 

Sir Arthur James Balfour had been com- 
missioned by the British Mission to America 
to lay a wreath upon the tomb of Washington. 
Do you catch the big meaning of that.^ Eng- 
land would decorate the grave of him who had 
led her thirteen American colonies in successful 
rebellion against her policies. 

The simple explanation is this: Our mother 
England has long since freed herself from the 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 141 

policies of rulers like George III, and to-day 
is one of the most democratic of nations. Eng- 
lishmen of Sir Arthur Balfour's day love liberty 
much as did Chatham and Burke when they 
protested in the British Parliament against 
injustice to the American colonies. 

When Mr. Balfour came forward to place 
the wreath, he stood for a moment, silent, and 
seemingly overcome by all that the situation 
meant to the people of the two great English- 
speaking countries. When at length he spoke, 
it was to say simply: 

"M. Viviani has expressed in most eloquent 
words the feelings which grip us all here to- 
day. He has not only paid a fitting tribute to 
a great statesman, but he has brought our 
thoughts most vividly down to the present. 

*' There is no place in the world where a 
speech for the cause of liberty would be better 
placed than here at the tomb of Washington. 

*'But as that work has been so adequately 
done by a master of oratory, perhaps you will 
permit me to read a few words prepared by 
the British Mission for the wreath we are to 
to leave here to-day: 



142 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

'" * Dedicated by the British Mission to the 
immortal memory of George Washington, sol- 
dier, statesman, patriot, who would have re- 
joiced to see the country of w^hich he was by 
birth a citizen and the country which his genius 
called into existence, fighting side by side to 
save mankind from subjection to a military 
despotism.' " 

And America did not fail of a fitting answer. 
In the speeches of her own representatives there, 
and on the tongues of all her people, were ex- 
pressions of deep gratification that the two 
great peoples of the same blood, the same 
language, the same ideals, should be brought 
together again in affection and in perfect un- 
derstanding. 

THE SHIP OF STATE 

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

. . . Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears. 
With all its hopes of future years. 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 143 

We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel. 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope. 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 

Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 

'Tis of the wave and not the rock; 

'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 

And not a rent made by the gale ! 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar. 

In spite of false lights on the shore. 

Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 

Are all with thee ! 



SOLDIERS OF FREEDOM 

When, in response to the President's ap- 
peal. Congress declared a state of war to be 
existing between the United States and Ger- 
many, many thousands were prompt to volun- 



144 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

teer their services to the flag, and these were 
gladly accepted. 

But our country — always democratic — quick- 
ly passed the Selective Draft Law. Where all 
classes rule, it is right that all classes should also 
serve. 

Welcoming these new "Soldiers of Free- 
dom" into the nation's service, the President 
wrote : 

*'The White House, Washington. 

*' To the Soldiers of the National Army : 

"You are undertaking a great duty. The 
heart of the whole country is with you. Every- 
thing that you do will be watched with the 
deepest interest and with the deepest solicitude 
not only by those who are near and dear to 
you, but by the whole nation besides. For this 
great war draws us all together, makes us all 
comrades and brothers, as all true Americans 
felt themselves to be when we first made good 
our national independence. The eyes of all 
the world will be upon you, because you are 
in some special sense the soldiers of freedom. 
"Let it be your pride, therefore, to show 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 145 

all men everywhere not only what good sol- 
diers you are, but also what good men you are, 
keeping yourselves fit and straight in every- 
thing and pure and clean through and through. 
Let us set for ourselves a standard so high that 
it will be a glory to live up to it and then let 
us live up to it and add a new laurel to the crown 
of America. 

''My affectionate confidence goes with you 
in every battle and every test. God keep and 

guide you ! 

"WooDROW Wilson." 



A TOAST 

BY GEORGE MORROW MAYO 

Here's to the Blue of the wind-swept North, 
When we meet on the fields of France. 

May the spirit of Grant be with you all 
As the Sons of the North advance ! 

And here's to the Gray of the sun-kissed South, 
When we meet on the fields of France. 

May the spirit of Lee be with you all 
As the Sons of the South advance ! 



146 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

And here's to the Blue and the Gray as one ! 

When we meet on the fields of France. 
May the spirit of God be with us all 

As the Sons of the Flag advance ! 

LOYALTY 

The most nobly tragic figure in our coun- 
try to-day is the American of German blood 
whose deep consciousness of the right and the 
wrong involved compels him to take up arms 
against his Fatherland of tender memories and 
traditions. 

Hear what some of them have to say: 

"To America, which we, prompted by love 
and gratitude, have chosen as our new home- 
land, we owe everything which it may justly 
require from us as citizens. When conscience 
speaks, the heart must keep silent. . . . 

" There is but one authority for us to go by 
in such cases — conscience combined with duty. 
Before these solemn and stern majesties we 
have to bow in absolute submission in the pres- 
ent crisis. Let us do it in gratitude toward 
America, which has welcomed us to its hospitable 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 147 

shores and has given us opportunities such as 
the old country simply could not offer to most 
of us, and which has granted us golden liberty 
for everything noble and good, and which has 
showered an abundance of blessings upon us. 

"With these convictions we Americans of 
German descent or birth shall stand by our 
flag whatever may come — with hands folded 
for intercession, but ready as well for sacrifices 
and, if need be, to fight, let us support our 
government and pray God to protect our be- 
loved American homeland ! " 

A. G. BUCHER. 

"We Americans of foreign antecedents are 
here not by the accident of birth, but by our 
own free choice for better or for worse. 

*'We are your fellow citizens because you 
accepted our oath of allegiance as given in good 
faith, and because you have opened to us in 
generous trust the portals of American oppor- 
tunity and freedom, and have admitted us to 
membership in the family of Americans, giving 
us equal rights in the great inheritance which 
has been created by the blood and the toil of 



148 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

your ancestors, asking nothing from us in re- 
turn but decent citizenship and adherence to 
those ideals and principles which are symbol- 
ized by the glorious flag of America." 

Otto H. Kahn. 

"Any other course than a declaration of 
war would make a weakling of this great na- 
tion. 

''Our influence for good in the world would 
be destjoyed, and future generations would be 
ashamed of the conduct of their fathers." 

Judge Leo Rassieur. 

''Politically, I am an American and nothing 
else; but I am proud to be a German. I would 
consider myself less than a man were I to for- 
get the tremendous sacrifices made by the im- 
migrant Germans in defense of their new Father- 
land. Shall this blood have flowed in vain? 
Shall we now attack this America to which we 
gave all we had to give.^^ This country is our 
country; our interests are its interests; here we 
are; here will our descendants be; here we 
shall stay. The Union, now and forever." 

General Franz Sigel (in the Civil War). 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 149 

''In the fires of the Civil War the North and 
the South were welded into one great union 
of States. If the fires of the present war will 
weld the many nationalities in our citizenship 
into one great cohesive union of nationalities, 
and burn away the adjectives of nationalism 
from 'American,' then will there be a national 
profit that will more than balance the terrible 
sacrifices we shall be required to make. 

"Where do we, the sons of men like Franz 
Sigel and his companions in the struggle for 
liberty, stand .^ If we are to be true to them 
and the ideals for which they fought, we must 
stand to-day on the side of America and free- 
dom against the German Government and 
autocracy. We shall not then fight against 
our blood kindred, but in the broader sense, 
we shall fight for them against a government 
not of their own creation. We shall secure for 
them the right of self-government, the right 
of a people and not of a Kaiser to find its place 
'in the sun' — the sun of liberty and equality." 

Franz Sigel (the son). 

"My emotions tell me one thing at this aw- 
ful time, but my reason tells me another. As a 



150 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

German by birth it is a horrible calamity that 
I may have to fight Germans. That is natural, 
is it not? But as an American by preference, 
I can see no other course open." 

C. KOTZENABE. 



"The present ruling class of Germany must 
be removed or at least be made impotent of 
doing any further mischief. When this is ac- 
complished a great stride will have been made 
toward universal world peace. Under a new, 
liberal, free government, the German people 
will expand and blossom into a still greater 
nation, and all their energy and brain power 
will be expended in the channels of peace in- 
stead of war." ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ 



THE NATION IN ARMS 

ADAPTED FROM AN ADDRESS BY FRANKLIN K. 
LANE, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 

Why are we fighting Germany? The brief 
answer is that ours is a war of self-defense. We 
did not wish to fight Germany. She made the 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 151 

attack upon us; not on our shores, but on our 
ships, our hves, our rights, our future. 

This is a war to save America— to preserve 
self-respect, to justify our right to Hve as we 
have lived, not as some one else wishes us to live. 
For America is not the name of so much terri- 
tory. It is a living spirit, born in travail, grown 
in the rough school of bitter experience, a living 
spirit which has purpose and pride, and con- 
science — knows why it wishes to live and to 
what end, knows why it comes to be respected 
of the world, and hopes to retain that respect 
by living on with the Hght of Lincoln's love of 
man as its Old and New Testament. It is more 
precious that this America should live than 
that we Americans should live. 

We fight Germany 

Because of Belgium— invaded, outraged, en- 
slaved, impoverished Belgium. 

Because of France— invaded, desecrated 
France, a million of whose heroic sons have 
died to save the land of Lafayette. Glorious 
golden France, the preserver of the arts, the 
land of noble spirit— the first land to follow 
our lead into republican liberty. 



152 MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 

Because of England — from whom came the 
laws, traditions, standards of life, and inherited 
love of liberty which we call Anglo-Saxon 
civilization. 

Because of Russia — New Russia. She must 
not be overwhelmed now. 

Because of other peoples, with their rising 
hope that the world may be freed from govern- 
ment by the soldier. 

We are fighting Germany because she vio- 
lated our confidence. 

The nation that would do this thing pro- 
claims the gospel that government has no con- 
science. And this doctrine cannot live, or else 
democracy must die. For the nations of the 
world must keep faith. There can be no living 
for us in the world where the state has no con- 
science, no reverence, for the things of the spirit, 
no respect for international law, no mercy for 
those who fall before its force. 

We are fighting Germany because in this 
war feudalism is making its last stand against 
oncoming democracy. We see it now. This 
is a war against an old spirit, an ancient, out- 
worn spirit. It is a war against feudalism — the 



MY COUNTRY'S VOICE 153 

right of the castle on the hill to rule the village 
below. It is a war for democracy — the right 
of all to be their own masters. Let Germany 
be feudal if she will, but she must not spread 
her system over the world that has outgrown 
it. 

We fight with the world for an honest world 
in which nations keep their word. 



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